Does An Employee’s Health Improve By Using Sound Masking?

In our Noise and Wellbeing in the Workplace survey, noise was identified as a consistent source of stress and frustration in the workplace. The most irritating noises cited included telephone calls, personal conversations and sudden outbursts of laughter.

If this sounds familiar, you may wonder what you can do about it? After all, if your office is
an open-plan environment, you won’t necessarily want to entirely redesign your space.

For the open-plan office, sound masking is one solution.

For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of sound masking, it’s an effective ambient acoustic solution, designed to match the frequency of human speech. This reduces the effect of common office-based noises by making them less intelligible.

Listed below are several ways an employee’s health can be improved with sound masking:

Increase focus, reduce stress

Busy offices can be high-pressure environments where lots of work needs to be completed in a short space of time. However, the combination of tight deadlines and lots of noise can be a source of stress for some employees.

Particularly if the tasks are detail-orientated, or where it’s important that mistakes are not made. If your employees are consistently distracted or unable to concentrate, this could drive down their productivity and workplace satisfaction. But how does this relate to health?

It’s no secret that prolonged stress can run down our immune systems and could even result in a number of mental and physical health problems. From headaches, to anxiousness, reducing noise distractions in the work environment can help decrease or even eliminate a big source of stress in the workplace.

This should mean less sick days, happier, healthier employees and higher levels of productivity due to an improved level of workplace wellbeing.

Increase speech privacy

Another way sound masking can improve your employee’s health and wellbeing includes increasing levels of privacy. Our survey reported that a lack of privacy was a source of concern for many office workers, and made them feel uncomfortable sharing certain information. If employees feel they cannot communicate, this will not only impact their ability to work effectively, but it could also impact their mental health and wellbeing.

Raising the levels of ambient sound means that private conversations won’t be overheard and your employees can feel more comfortable in the workplace.

Final thoughts

From ensuring that your employees are not contending with stressful noise distractions, to enabling confidential conversations in the workplace to remain private, sound masking has a wealth of health benefits for your employees.

Taking care of employees’ health and wellbeing starts with identifying problem areas in your office. If you find that noise is an issue, sound masking is the perfect solution. To arrange a demonstration or to find out more, contact Remark Group today – we’ll be happy to answer your questions.