For many of us, work is where we spend the majority of our time, having a fulfilling job can help contribute to your wellbeing and workplace satisfaction.
Introduction
Healthy employees perform better because they have more energy and therefore, more motivation.
A thoughtful workplace design can be a powerful tool in supporting and even boosting employee wellbeing and productivity. When designing your workplace there are many factors you should take into consideration, an often over looked but highly important factor is noise.
The Impact of Noise
Noise can have a huge impact on the environment, particularly in a workplace, but it is often one thing that is overlooked when designing an office. Today’s modern architecture includes open plan offices, glass meeting rooms and open collaboration areas, aesthetically they are the future in office design but acoustically they can have a negative impact on the productivity and wellbeing of your employees.
Acoustic design can dramatically affect the way we feel, reduce stress or increase stress levels and even alter our behaviour and physiology. In a recent survey conducted by the Remark Group, ‘Noise and Wellbeing at work 2019’, it was found that 65% of UK Office Workers say noise impacts on their ability to complete work in an accurate and timely manner.
Acoustic conditions in the workplace have been noted as a leading source of dissatisfaction when compared to other elements that contribute to overall comfort such as office layout, furnishing, thermal comfort, air quality, lighting and general cleanliness.
Noise in the workplace can have a considerate impact on an employee’s wellbeing and stress levels. Conversational distraction is the number one dissatisfaction in employee wellbeing, equally, a completely silent workplace can increase stress levels with workers being afraid to make any noise.
In the same survey almost half of UK workers say noise has a negative impact on their wellbeing whilst 58% say that noise has a high impact on their stress levels in the workplace.
Sound Masking
Sound Masking increases the acoustic background noise level evenly throughout a given zone to reduce distraction and increase productivity, privacy and increases office comfort, making employees feel more relaxed and in turn, reducing stress. Sound Masking works by emitting an un-obtrusive background noise to an environment that is specifically designed to mask human speech.
This means conversations aren’t as easily understood at a distance and are therefore less distracting and less stressful to other employees
Contact us today to find out more about Sound Masking or you can arrange a demo with one of our experts.
