Want to improve worker concentration by 48%? Use office design to reduce noise.
If you want your office design to facilitate productive high-quality work, reducing noise levels and lowering sound volume is crucial. Excessive noise poses as distractions anywhere, including hospitals and hotels, not just an office environment. Noise is inevitable, but it does not need to impact your bottom line negatively. One study found that reducing noise in an office leads to improved worker concentration by 48%, lowered errors made by 10%, and even reduced stress by 27%.
Consider the following office design tips to reduce noise in your office work environment. Additionally, please consider reaching out to Edwards & Hill to help you design and install an efficient office setting.
Office Layout
Open office layouts seemed like such a great idea until workers found out how distracting it was, visually and acoustically. Working in a shared space does not suit everyone. Sometimes, people need more separate workstations to focus and produce high-quality work. Consider altering your open office layout to use panel partitions to offer workers a bit more privacy and to act as sound absorbers to reduce noise. Alternatively, you can switch to an activity-based working office design. This design necessitates zones in the office for quieter individual work or noisier collaboration and discussion.
Ceilings, Walls, Floors
Lining the office interior with noise-reducing materials and coverings helps with sound control. Different materials reflect, absorb, or diffuse sound different throughout the room. Starting from the top, you can install stylish yet functional sound baffles to absorb noise reverberations. Hanging wall fixtures of different materials affects how noise travels in the room or comes in from other parts of the building. In general, wall panels or insulation helps reduce noise. Carpeting is a popular choice to cover echoey concrete floors. Softer luxury vinyl tiles come in many different styles while remaining durable. This material also absorbs sound nicely.
Furniture
The amount of furniture and placement of furniture affects people’s noise perception as well. Furnishing your office design with high-backed, fabric seating can physically block out some surrounding noise so workers can focus on their tasks and projects. Phone booths are excellent additions too. People can take phone calls in the enclosures to avoid distracting others with their conversation.
Sound Masking
Instead of encouraging workers to bring noise-canceling headphones to work (which they can do on their own accord), you can incorporate sound masks into your office design. As opposed to reducing the noise around you, sound masking enhances other natural or artificial sounds in the room to drown out more distracting noises. By raising background noise, it makes overheard conversations less intelligible, less likely to follow, and, therefore, less likely to distract.
Let Edwards & Hill Help Design Your Office
When considering the design of your new work environment, the number of options for office furniture can be overwhelming. Edwards & Hill can help you design and install the perfect office design for your facility. Edwards & Hill is a leading office, education, medical, and hospitality furniture provider with high-quality design and installation services for any style or scale. If you are ready to get your healthcare design started, contact us online or give us a call at 301-317-4250. For more furniture design tips, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Youtube.
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