You are here: Home / Archives for stress

Tips for Dealing with Office Stress

October 5, 2011 By

Office Stress

Office stress is a sad reality for too many workers.  They have inner-office conflicts, job stress, and distractions aplenty, and it all adds up to a lot of stress.  Stress can manifest mentally and physically, often leading to a terrible loss of productivity, excessive sick days, work-related injuries, and general worker disengagement.  This all adds up to an enormous loss for companies- somewhere around $600 billion a year!

If this concerns you, check out the following tips for reducing stress at work, from common sense advice to ergonomic principles.  Just educating your workers about their habits and muscle use can go a long way in reducing stress, strain, and injury, all of which hurt everyone involved.

  • Just like a good workout program, it’s important to warm up and cool down. It’s probably not wise to require it, but you might want to encourage it.  Arriving  a few minutes early to think through their days and begin to mentally prepare for the tasks ahead, as well as allowing them the last few minutes at the end of the day to set up their work stations for the next day.
  • More and more companies are practicing a quiet time in which all technology is shut off for the purpose of distraction-free work/organization time.  This time is set aside for collaborative work, filing, re-working their space and getting organized.  It may be helpful to have an ergonomic expert share some basic tips for desktop set-up.  For example, some quick fixes are: 1) place your most used items, like your phone or stapler, within easy reach, 2) move your keyboard and mouse so that they are centered in front of you, an inch or two above your legs with the aid of an adjustable keyboard tray can help optimize your work space, and 3) try upgrading to an ergonomic keyboard to increase your comfort and productivity.
  • Encourage workers to start the day with the most important tasks when they are freshest.  It’s far too tempting to waste those first few precious moments gabbing or playing around online.  While some email checking and phone calls may be priority, they can usually wait until more important tasks are accomplished.  It’s important not to let low priority tasks interrupt you constantly throughout the day.
  • Stand up! Remind workers to take quick breaks to stretch and refocus.  They should physically stand up and stretch their backs, necks, and shoulders every hour to relax muscles and ease any discomfort. Many workers enjoy a rolled up towel or portable lumbar support cushion for better back support.
  • Try sound masking.  This is one area you can control!  The average worker is distracted more than 2 hours every day, and it’s your job as manager to alleviate the frustration that accompanies not being able to concentrate.

Encouraging workers to prioritize their work days and deliberately time breaks to refresh them for the next task, as well as evaluating work space to determine what tools, such as an ergonomic keyboard or sound masking, will help lower work-related injuries and strains, thus reducing stress and employee turn-over.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , ,

Sound Masking: The Solution to Office Noise

March 28, 2011 By

The average worker loses about two hours of work each day due to interruptions and distractions. Especially in the open office, employees are exposed to dozens of conversations each day that may or may not have anything to do with their current task. So much energy is spent trying to tune out everything going on around them. They have also lost all privacy for their conversations, whether in person or on the phone, adding to their feelings of stress and being undervalued.

How to control sound

Sound issues in any space can be treated in three main ways:  absorbing, blocking and covering sound. These are known as the ABC’s of noise control. These three, used in combination, provide the best solution to noise issues in an office environment. Sound is best absorbed through the use of appropriate ceiling tiles, and it is blocked by proper office panels between cubicles and offices.  However, very few offices utilize the third treatment, covering or masking sound.

What is Sound Masking?

Most offices already utilize the first two treatments, but sound masking, the most effective of the three, is often overlooked. Sound masking is the technique of adding barely noticeable background sounds to cover the intrusive noises all around us. Today’s sound masking technology floods the background with specific “white” noise focused on the spectrum of human speech. This precision of white noise will effectively cover conversations in an office setting, returning privacy to the open floor. Proper sound masking, or covering, has been shown to lower distractions by up to 51% and reduce stress by 27%, both of which contribute to employee satisfaction and productivity.

Does it really Work?

Yes. The correct use of white noise really does mask conversations and other noises that interrupt you throughout the day. This technology is used in government offices, medical facilities and many other businesses because of its effectiveness. The result is that private conversations are not overheard, and office noise is not longer a huge distraction for workers. And the best part is that this technology is now affordable to smaller businesses as well.

Most employees are interrupted several times a day by conversations and noise that does not directly involve them. In addition to sound-absorbent, ceiling tiles and sound-blocking cubicle panels, sound masking is an effective and affordable way to control sound in the work place. It covers distracting noise increasing concentrate, lowers stress levels, and returns a level of speech privacy to the open office plan.

Filed Under: Blog, Sound Masking Tagged With: , , , ,

Reduce Stress and Boost Productivity with Sound Masking

February 7, 2011 By

Did you know that the average worker loses two hours of productive work each day due to distractions in the office? There are constant conversations buzzing around them – the person in the next cubical is on the phone; the water cooler talk is almost always present; and the discussion between two co-workers in the hall is louder than they realize. Even at their most productive times, they are wasting energy and time trying not to hear all the noise around them. Businesses around the country are installing office-wide sound masking systems to increase privacy and productivity among their employees.

What is sound masking?

Sound masking seeks to “mask” unnecessary sounds with the use of white noise. White noise is sound, or noise, created from all the frequencies in the audible spectrum; it is named after white light which is created from all the colors in the visible spectrum. With today’s technology, white noise is specifically focused on the specifically on the frequency range of human speech.

The first question that comes to mind is how adding noise helps people concentrate better. A great illustration is a flash light in a dark room. Imagine you are in a dark room and someone across the room is randomly blinking a flashlight at you. The flashlight is very distracting and even irritating. But what happens if you turn on the overhead lights? Now you hardly notice the flashlight; the overhead lights have covered, or masked, the smaller light of the flashlight.

Sound masking works on a similar principle. By adding general white noise, similar to the gentle “whooshing” sound of a fan or an AC unit, you hardly notice the distracting sounds around you.

Why use sound masking?

This technology is used all over the U.S. to improve privacy and productivity – at government agencies, medical facilities and standard office buildings. Sound masking has incredible advantages for any office setting, and especially in open floor plans with cubicles. Here are some of the top benefits:

  • Less distraction at work: By masking conversations and excess noise, the average worker can be up to 25% more productive with their work hours. Sound masking installed in the entire office space will benefit the entire office.
  • Improved privacy and confidentiality: Many office situations need confidentiality – human resources, government services, medical facilities, counseling, and many more. Sound masking significantly improves privacy and confidentiality throughout an entire office. It uses white noise to make human speech unintelligible to those beyond the immediate conversation.
  • Decreased stress for workers: Most of us are not aware of the stress we experience from trying to block excess noise around us. Think about trying to write an important email, or work through a complicated problem, all the while there is a noise, maybe a conversation or a horn honking, that is trying to gain your attention.  According to a study by the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), even a small acoustic treatment can reduce worker stress by more than 25%.

The appropriate use of white noise in a work place, even on an individual scale, can lower stress and increase concentration by masking background conversations and noise. Quality office-wide, sound masking provides effective privacy and confidentiality, while decreasing office distractions.

Filed Under: Sound Masking Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

More stress, fewer solutions…that’s not good

December 27, 2009 By

More stress, less problem-solving, and fewer ergonomic adjustments does not inspire creative, efficient work.

A Cornell study found the following to be true (emphasis mine):

The environmental psychologists found that the workers in the noisy office experienced significantly higher levels of stress (as measured by urinary epinephrine), made 40 percent fewer attempts to solve an unsolvable puzzle and made only half as many ergonomic adjustments to their workstations as did their colleagues in quiet offices. Typing performance, however, was not affected.

With a cut-throat economy and the need for creative solutions, now is not the time to increase stress, while simultaneously decreasing the ability to problem-solve and make needed adjustments to one’s workspace.  If you need your employees just to type, then you don’t need to worry about acoustic treatments, so that’s good news.  Otherwise, you might want to consider making acoustic adjustments so your employees can make the adjustments necessary to get their work done.  Interestingly, the same study reported (emphasis mine):

“In terms of practice, our findings are potentially important, because if worker motivation is lower under open-office noise because of its uncontrollability, various design options could be adopted. For example, when concentration is required, workers might use a quiet, enclosed room or sound-making devices that they would control. These kinds of measures might help alleviate the harmful effects of open-office noise on workers.”

There are a variety of sound masking units and systems currently available on the market.  Some can be installed office-wide and others can be installed for individual use and adjustment.  Either way, sound masking is a relatively simple and cost effective measure to take for you and your employees to get the most out of each work day.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,

Cutting costs doesn’t mean cutting corners

November 10, 2009 By


Businesses have fewer resources but clients who demand better service.  Every manager is looking for ways to cut costs and somehow not cut corners.  How can you get more from less? 

Maximizing the resource you have

Let’s face it, in an open office sound carries.  As one Cornell study found, “as sound levels increase, the complexity of the task one can complete generally decreases.”  In addition, they found that high levels of noise generally lead to higher levels of fatigue and irritability.  So, you get less or at least worse work from tired and stressed employees. 

The same Cornell study also stated that the best way to contend with excessive noise is by using a sound-masking system.  Sound-masking provides a uniform and low-level background noise to cancel out unwanted distractions, thus enabling your workers to produce higher-quality work in less time.

Without hiring any new staff, you can increase your company’s productivity exponentially by reclaiming the time lost due to unnecessary distractions. Don’t you think it’s worth maximizing your workers’ time? 

Mardex, Justin. (2004) Auditory, visual, and physical distractions in the workplace.  Retrieved August 17, 2009 from http://www.scribd.com/doc/13038258/Auditory-visual-and-physical-distractions-in-the-workplace

 

Filed Under: Blog, Business, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: , , , ,
August 27, 2009 By




Cutting costs doesn’t mean cutting corners

Businesses have fewer resources but clients who demand better service.  Every manager is looking for ways to cut costs and somehow not cut corners.  How can you get more from less? 

Maximizing the resource you have

Let’s face it, in an open office sound carries.  As one Cornell study found, “as sound levels increase, the complexity of the task one can complete generally decreases.”  In addition, they found that high levels of noise generally lead to higher levels of fatigue and irritability.  So, you get less or at least worse work from tired and stressed employees. 

The same Cornell study also stated that the best way to contend with excessive noise is by using a sound masking system.  Sound masking provides a uniform and low-level background noise to cancel out unwanted distractions, thus enabling your workers to produce higher-quality work in less time.

Without hiring any new staff, you can increase your company’s productivity exponentially by reclaiming the time lost due to unnecessary distractions. Don’t you think it’s worth maximizing your workers’ time?

 

Mardex, Justin. (2004) Auditory, visual, and physical distractions in the workplace.  Retrieved August 17, 2009 from http://www.scribd.com/doc/13038258/Auditory-visual-and-physical-distractions-in-the-workplace

Filed Under: Blog, Business, office noise, Sound Masking Tagged With: , , , ,