If the workplace studies are right, your employees hate your open office – they’re just not telling you. The downsides of the open office revolve around three things: lack of control in the working environment, lack of privacy, and biggest and most difficult of all, noise. One team may be brainstorming and another may be racing for deadlines, trying to focus – in the same space. Here are four sound masking tips for the open office:
1. Provide a sense of privacy to boost job performance.
It doesn’t have to be cubicles. EcoPrivacy Acoustic™ Panels are functional art, reducing visual distractions, adding dimension and color to your workstations, and contributing to noise absorption and blocking.
2. Achieve speech privacy with high-quality sound masking.
Speech privacy– not hearing other people talking and therefore not losing your thread of thought– is a measurable element in your working environment, achieved through the ABCs of acoustic design:
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.
MPS™ provides all three through high-quality acoustic panels and superior sound masking. Together, EcoPrivacy Acoustic™ panels and VoiceArrest™ sound masking system are the most cost-effective noise solution for your work environment, applied with little to no disturbance to the building’s day to day operations, eliminating overheard speech, and the $587 billion cost of distractions!
3. Give back control of the work environment.
Desks decorations are now passe with the advent of flex workspaces. So give employees the ability to control lighting, temperature, and noise. Area dimmers and thermostats solve this easily.
The noise levels of offices are never predictable, but inferior white noise machines/sound masking automatically ramps up at predetermined times of day, either deafening employees during times of quiet, or ineffective when they’re needed most.
VoiceArrest™’s patented and exclusive adaptive technology adjusts according to noise levels. Once calibrated, it doesn’t need input, but it still comes with remote and wall controllers.
4. Schedule interruptions.
Encourage each employee to anticipate regular and expected interruptions, and schedule it into their days. Ask them to post, “Talk to me at: __” card signs on their workstations, so that colleagues (and superiors) don’t ruin their focus, especially during crucial times of the month.
Find out more and compare your sound masking and acoustic panels options at MPS™.
