Spaces
For most people, solving acoustical challenges in an office space can feel somewhat overwhelming. There are several different solutions to utilize and each works differently in different scenarios. Each space within an office can benefit from the right mix of solutions.
Here’s why sound treatment is so important at work.
Poor acoustics negatively impacts productivity
In open floor office spaces, employees complain about noisy environments, excessive reverberation, and reflection off of hard surfaces, as well as a lack of privacy. Time is lost when employees leave the work area to talk on the phone or have a sensitive conversation.
Recent studies have shown the negative impacts of poor acoustics:
- 75% of employees in one study rated workplace acoustics as the worst aspect of their office environment.
- Reduced productivity: Sound expert Julian Treasure reported that there is a 66% drop in productivity in open offices.
- Stress: According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), noise is the main contributor to workplace stress. A Cornell study says that the uncontrollability of sound makes it stressful.
- Employee disengagement: Stress eventually leads to employee disengagement. 71% of employees are not engaged.
- High turnover rate: Stress and disengagement cause up to 40% of workers to seek employment elsewhere. Increased absenteeism and error rate: With the best and brightest employees leaving and the remaining disengaged workers, employees tend to have more errors and sick days.
Unhappy or disengaged employees result in lowered productivity and higher turnover. For some industries such as law, medicine, and government and military installations, privacy in conference rooms or executive offices is critical and can’t be ignored.
Part of the equation to happy, healthy workspaces and protected confidentiality involves finding the right noise-reducing solution which can help prevent tiredness and stress, resulting in increased productivity and better overall well-being.
How to Solve Acoustical Problems.
Beautifully designed offices frequently turn into acoustic nightmares, but by using the right mix of tools, we can help make sure you get the highly functional, high-ROI space you’re looking for!
Treating an acoustic environment sounds complicated. It doesn’t have to be. In fact, it’s as simple as knowing your ABCs.
The ABC’s of Speech Privacy
Absorb using acoustic panels or dividers can absorb distracting sounds as well as cut down on visual distractions.
Block installing partitions can reduce both acoustic and visual distractions.
Cover adding a source of unstructured, low-level background sound with a modern, adaptive sound masking system can cover distracting noise and increase speech privacy.
“The ABC’s” is a convenient and memorable acronym of three components that perform best when combined in some form to achieve an acceptable level of speech privacy to improve workplace productivity.
Open Office
Modern open office concepts are designed to maximize space and collaboration between employees. While these benefits can be significant, they do come at a cost.
The Problem:
- Distractions from other employees communicating
- Lack of privacy for personal conversations
- Overall buildup of noise in the office
- Movement in the office distracts others
The Solution:
- Adding Intelligent Sound Masking throughout the space automatically adapts to the noise environment and covers over distracting conversations
- Absorption in Ceiling if no ceiling tile system exists reduces the overall buildup of noise
- Desk screens that absorb provide both space separation for visual privacy as well as absorption keeping employees more focused and better separated
Open office spaces are designed to be flexible, multifunctional spaces in which teams can collaborate while other workers can do focused work. In order to accomplish both of these goals in the same space, extra attention must be paid to visual and acoustic privacy. Contact us today to discuss a holistic privacy solution for your space that considers all of the ABCs!
Enclosed Office
Enclosed or private office spaces are generally reserved for department heads, team leaders, and others who need privacy to do their best work. Conversations involving sensitive company information, HR issues or privileged information such as medical diagnoses or legal discussions are common and must be protected.
The Problem:
- Walls often are hollow and do not extend all the way to the deck allowing sound to travel easily from office to office and out into the hallway
- Gaps in the door or ceiling can allow sound to escape making phone calls and conversations no longer private
The Solution:
- Adding sound masking to the office as well as in hallways and surrounding areas will help make the speaker less intelligible and more private
- Acoustic panels can help reduce reverberation and lower the buildup of noise in the office
To add privacy to your enclosed offices, talk to a privacy expert today!
Conference Rooms
Modern Conference Rooms are often beautiful spaces designed to foster great discussions and creative problem-solving. But often they are flawed by acoustic and visual distractions.
The Problem:
- Glass-walled conference rooms can create echo making conference and video calls difficult for others to hear
- Adjacent rooms and lobbies can easily understand what is being said inside the conference room
The Solution:
- Ceiling or wall-mounted acoustic panels can reduce reverberation in the room drastically improving sound quality on a conference or video call
- Hanging acoustic panels can also improve acoustic performance in the room while adding visual privacy along a glass wall to reduce distractions from movement
- Adding sound masking to the adjacent rooms and hallways will help make the conversations inside the conference room more private to anyone outside the room (We do not typically recommend sound masking to be put in the conference room)
Freeing your team from distractions or from worry about something being overheard clears the pathway to a greater degree of trust and better performance. To add privacy to conference rooms, talk to a privacy expert today!
Huddle Spaces
Huddle spaces are an excellent innovation in modern open office design, adding flexible areas for quick team meetings, Agile standups, and brainstorming sessions away from individual workstations. However, these highly functional office spaces are often designed without accounting for important visual and acoustic privacy concerns.
The Problem:
- Movement by others around the space can be distracting for those meeting in the huddle space
- Similar to private offices and conference rooms, there is often very little privacy for those in the space and conversations can easily be overheard elsewhere
- Sometimes the hard surfaces in the space make video and conference calls difficult for the people on the other end of the line
The Solution:
- Hanging acoustic panels can dramatically limit the visual distractions of the huddle space
- Adding sound masking to the space as well as in hallways and surrounding areas will help make speaker less intelligible and more private
- Ceiling or wall-mounted acoustic panels can reduce reverberation in the room drastically improving sound quality on a conference or video call
To add privacy to huddle rooms, talk to a privacy expert today!