Why Should Businesses Care About Poor Office Acoustics?
If you’re a business owner or facilities manager, one aspect of the work environment that you’ll want to pay attention to are the noise levels. Why? Well, noise has been cited as a key problem that not only affects productivity and open discussion, but also impacts wellbeing. We’re taking a closer look at why you should care about poor acoustics in the workplace in this article.
Top 5 Reasons Businesses Should Care About Poor Acoustics
Employee wellbeing
Employee wellbeing might seem like just another box-ticking exercise for the modern-day office, but it’s worth placing this one a little higher up the pecking order.
Why? Too much noise distraction and too little speech privacy in the workplace is associated with increased stress levels. This could result in employees taking more time off work, a reduction in productivity and even a higher turnover of staff.
However, solutions such as sound masking and soundscapes can take care of your employees’ comfort and wellbeing by managing unwanted noise, whilst also increasing privacy levels. Acoustic wellbeing solutions should help the rest to fall into place and you should have a more thriving, productive and happy workforce.
Also, if your facility regularly accommodates clients or patients then this could also improve their comfort with regards to speech privacy and create a more relaxing ambience helping you to provide a better service.
Productivity
If your employees are consistently tuning in to office gossip and phone conversations, or being interrupted by the sound of loud ringtones, or typing then chances are frustration levels are going to be high and work is not going to be completed as efficiently as it could be. However, by improving your acoustics, you should be able to mask these distracting noises and increase overall productivity by enabling your staff to focus without interruption.
Speech privacy
From ensuring confidential or sensitive information is not overheard, to helping employees feel more comfortable discussing confidential subjects, providing speech privacy is certainly something that you should care about in the workplace to improve wellbeing.
Professionalism
If you regularly hold meetings with clients and stakeholders they may view a lack of privacy unfavourably, particularly if there is high-stakes information being discussed. Neither will they appreciate distracting noises filtering in from outside the room you are having the meeting. Fitting sound masking systems in and around your meeting rooms will not only help keep the conversation flowing and on-track with little to no noise distraction, but you will also be providing a confidential, private space to discuss business without being overheard by people walking past or perhaps working nearby.
Privacy obligations
Whilst GDPR regulations are predominantly associated with physical documents and digital data, it’s still important to make sure that private information revealed in discussions is only heard on a need to know basis. This is particularly true for environments such as law firms, HR departments, and healthcare facilities.
These are just some reasons why you should care about poor acoustics in your workplace. The numerous benefits of sound masking, including improving wellbeing and speech privacy, will not only make your workforce healthier and happier, but should also improve overall business performance.
Want to see a demonstration of sound masking and discuss how this technology could improve the acoustics in your work environment? Contact Remark Group today.