Are your employees dealing with noise and terrible acoustics in the office? Noisy neighbours can be hugely frustrating and are often what you might think of when you hear about noise control and soundproofing solutions. But how much noise is generated in your office? If you could measure the noise on a scale of one to ten, would it be off the chart right now?
Noisy working environments can be a nightmare and can have a significant effect on employees, yet it’s not something that is discussed so often, particularly within an office environment. Yet, the issue deserves attention. Here are five reasons to improve the quality of your office acoustics right now, with noise reduction and control solutions.
1. It’s distracting
Office work often involves a variety of duties, which can result in a heavy cognitive load as employees juggle and prioritise tasks. Within a brief space of time, an employee might need to have a discussion with colleagues, make a phone call to a customer, and focus on carefully wording a response letter.
If there’s no noise control, they might carry out all these tasks while dealing with noise all around them. This makes it difficult for them to carry out your duties to the best of their abilities. It is not just interior acoustics from the rest of the building than can be off-putting, though. Distraction can often come from noise outside, particularly when offices are often in high-traffic areas.
Noise is a major distraction within the workplace and most of the time, there’s no need to endure this situation when better acoustics are all that’s required to allow staff to focus properly and perform their best.
2. It can cause tension
Without some form of noise control within your offices, employees can deal with noise for seven to eight hours of the day. It requires them to expend more energy in remaining focused. It doesn’t take long for this to have a negative impact on the body. This increased tension can affect both the mental and physical wellbeing of your employee. When people are tense, they also can’t perform their best and that tension can feed into the relationships they build with their team, supervisors, and customers.
3. It affects productivity
We are at our most productive when we can give our full focus to the task at hand. Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with noise all day, this acts like a constant interruption. Think of it as another feed into your brain, which is always competing for your attention. Not only this, but the accoustics can also grind you down and impact on your employee’s mental wellbeing. Again, this reduces their productivity. However, introducing forms of noise control can reverse this.
4. It gives you a headache
When exposed to constant noise, it can cause headaches. In the worst-case scenario, this might even lead to a migraine. When your employees are dealing with noise every day, it becomes increasingly likely that they will suffer with headaches of some description. However mild they might be, this can make it much more difficult for them to work effectively. In fact, it could even lead to absenteeism.
5. It’s annoying!
Noise is annoying. Imagine being constantly distracted at work, feeling tense, and experiencing a drop in your productivity levels while also enduring a headache most days? You would have every right to feel aggrieved! This is the situation many of your employees face if there is poor noise control in your office. Ultimately, this can lead to a high turnover of staff as they look for alternative work.
However, improving the acoustic levels can help enormously. It’ll deaden the sound and your employees will enjoy a quiet working zone for a change. But how can you achieve this?
How to introduce noise controls and improve the acoustics within your office
Before considering acoustic insulation or any other form of noise control, it’s essential that you first understand why you have a noise problem in your office. You might find that your office is suffering from echoes and reverberation. You can see how we were able to deal with this in a small studio in this video.
However, it’s also highly likely that noise is transferring from one room to another. Here, the real issue lies in the building’s construction. While many might think it’s simply a case of adding sound insulation to the walls, the truth is it’s a little more complex. These three things are nearly always the cause of noise transference:
The door – Noise can ‘leak’ through a thin door with no acoustic seals.
The ceiling – A hollow suspended ceiling across the entire office floor.
The walls – Thin partition walls that offer very little sound attenuation.
Unfortunately, these go hand in hand and are common in modern building methods. There is no quick fix. Dealing with only one issue will not amount to the noise reduction you require to make a difference. Solving the problem requires soundproofing specialists and a significant investment.
Before you carry out any work, it’s essential that you establish the cause of your noise problem. At Quietco, we use our four-step soundproofing method to do this, and our customers are often shocked to discover the real cause of the issue.
