E-Profit Today

For some businesses, the biggest losses in productivity don't come from employees using their time to surf the internet or complete other tasks that they should be doing on their own time, but rather from employees being distracted by office noise. In particular, the conversations that employees have during a work day that have no bearing on their duties can be office noise that not only takes them off task but affects other workers as well.

The acoustics of most offices leave a lot to be desired in situations when the employees do need to have interpersonal communications or a phone conversation, without distracting nearby employees. Cubicles with short walls, cramping many employees in a small area, and other such workforce planning issues result in a lot of office noise.

If there is a lot of noise in the office and this problem continues to go unchecked, there will be consequences that can result in costs to the company. Office noise can distract other employees or cause them to stop working for a variety of reasons, which will lower productivity. It might not seem like much at the time of any particular incident, but constant interruptions in workflow can result in a large monetary cost over time.

Many companies have started using office Sound Masking Systems to address the loss of productivity resulting from office noise. These systems use better acoustic designs to significantly reduce background sound which distracts most employees. It also provides speech privacy to employees who want to hold conversations. This ultimately results in increased productivity in almost all the employees since they would not be distracted as much.

As for dealing with the inevitable office noise that comes with employees talking to customers or with one another, a speech privacy system can be implemented to protect the conversation of the worker while shielding others in the office from being distracted by the talking.

If you're in a noisy office, be aware that such an office space can be a great loss of productivity, and consequently be a loss of money to the company. Taking the time to put in place sound masking or speech privacy systems in an office not only create a better work environment for all workers, but can ensure that your employees are on task and doing their jobs well.