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Is Your Office Suffering from Poor Sound Quality?
- “I can’t hear my customers on the phone over the conversations of my colleagues.” “Our conference room is not private enough. This is where we discuss private business deals and personal information.” “I’m stressed because I can’t concentrate hard enough to get my work done. I try but I’m so easily distracted by everyone around me.” If these sound familiar, you need Office Soundproofing.
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Noise in the Office Can...
- As you know, employee productivity is decreased by noise distraction, and it affects your bottom line. However, you may not realize how much of an affect it has. Often, improving acoustics with office soundproofing pays for itself by the increase in your company’s productivity. Companies come to us because they need a quieter work environment for their employees. Many of our customers need to reduce the noise created in the open floor plans and cubicles now popular in offices today. While these floor plans may encourage interaction between colleagues and save space and money, they cause office soundproofing problems. And these problems cost you money.
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What Can Office Soundproofing Do for You?
- Investing in office soundproofing provides the following benefits: • Reduce stress, leaving you with healthier workers • Decrease distractions, which ultimately increases concentration and quality work • Make conversations clear, resulting in better communication between employees • Provide a better working environment so your company keeps good employees • Keep areas private, ensuring your business’ confidential information is not at risk
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How Do You Know Which Type of Office Soundproofing You Need?
- Here’s an easy 2-step process to determine which you need: Step 1: Identify WHAT noise you hear. Is it someone’s voice? It is noisy office equipment? Is it the traffic outside your window? There are typically many noise distractions in an office setting, so be sure to prioritize your list. Step 2: Identify WHERE the noise is coming from. Is the noise coming from inside the same space as you, or is it coming from a separate room? For instance, is it the voice of someone on the phone in the office across the hall? Is it the sound of the copier sitting next to you? If there’s a construction element, such as a wall, that separates you from the noise, then it’s not in the same space as you. Most of the companies that come to us with sound problems need both office soundproofing and sound absorption materials.
Controlling sound in an office is more important than ever. Noise can be distracting, which impacts productivity and efficiency, especially for organizations that work with customers. These companies need quieter environments for better customer or client interactions.
Employees also have work-related needs. Communication and collaboration are essential to some, while others prefer working in total silence.
While today’s office workers spend roughly half or more of their time doing office work, offices are more collaborative than ever, with workers frequently breaking into small teams for concentrated discussions. While these discussions are important, without sound management, they can be distracting to workers trying to focus on their individual projects.
In addition, many of today’s offices follow an open or semi-open floor plan. These types of floor plans can quickly cause disruptions to anyone in the space.
Eliminating unwanted sound in an office can provide the answer. Office noise reduction can improve worker focus and satisfaction, leading to increased productivity. But what is the best way to soundproof a modern office?
Office Soundproofing Products
Office Sound Absorption Products
Types of Noise in an Office
Offices are hubs of communication and collaboration, resulting in sometimes distracting sounds. We know the sound of our co-workers talking can be extremely distracting, whether they are talking on the phone, talking to each other or just thinking out loud.
Co-worker chatter only scrapes the surface of the kind of noise levels some people experience daily. If you work in a traditional office, you probably hear some loud and potentially unpleasant noises every day without even realizing it, including the sounds of printers, computers, fax machines and HVAC units.
And what about music? Some companies allow their employees to play music quietly at their own desks or cubicles. Quietly is rarely quiet enough, especially if it’s the kind of music you can’t stand. One person’s Beethoven is another person’s Black Sabbath — or vice versa.
This is all if you are fortunate enough to work in a traditional office setting. What if you work on or near a construction site? Hearing jackhammers all day can cause major distractions. Or what if you happen to work near an airport or a busy highway? Airplanes and traffic noise can definitely take their toll and quickly reduce productivity.
Overall, there are very few offices that do not have a variety of different types of noise pollution, meaning they could all benefit from quality sound absorption for office noise reduction.
Benefits of Limiting Noise Pollution in an Office
Can reducing noise pollution in your office make a difference? The short answer is yes. Some office managers may even feel shocked by how much cubicle noise makes a difference in the workday. For example, noise pollution creates stress. It raises blood pressure and activates stress hormones. The last thing you need in an office is something that could boost hypertension, where people are often already subjected to high stress levels and may be largely sedentary. Reducing noise pollution can dramatically improve the health of your employees.
Productivity can also jump dramatically when you control noise pollution and cubicle noise. Noise can make it challenging for employees to focus on their tasks, drawing their thoughts away from essential operations. Some might decide to investigate the noise and end up chatting with coworkers.
Controlling noise pollution can also improve communication. With so much noise going on in the office, many workers may not even want to bother trying to communicate directly with other employees, preferring to use text or email. Texting or emailing is fine in certain instances, but it takes away from the advantages of brainstorming and the ability to bounce ideas off each other in real time.
Office Soundproofing Solutions
Blocking and absorbing office noise requires the right techniques and strategies. Implementing tried and true solutions can ensure your office benefits from soundproofing investments.
When soundproofing an office, it’s important to think about office sound control methods that will be relatively unobtrusive to your workers. If office soundproofing efforts cause a distraction or interfere with communication among workers on a daily basis, it defeats the purpose. Alternatively, if you can develop office sound control techniques that are functional and cost-effective without interfering, your office can benefit tremendously.
The following strategies can help you soundproof your office:
Sometimes, office noise comes from outside the office. City offices or those located on lower levels might get noise from vehicles and pedestrians passing by your building, adding more distractions for employees. Windows are crucial entry points for sound. You can block outside auditory distractions by investing in thicker glass or coverings.
Tile, hardwood and concrete flooring allows sound to echo and move throughout spaces. Carpet and rugs absorb sounds, preventing echoes. When offices are full of constant noise, carpet and rug solutions can dampen sounds and ensure your employees can focus on their tasks.
Like carpets, objects can also absorb sound or block waves from passing through spaces. When redecorating your office, consider adding more furniture and other items to manage how sound travels through office spaces. Couches, armchairs and plants can add some life, character and color to office spaces while absorbing some of the everyday noise.
In some instances, adding more noise can help create a quieter work environment. Sound masking creates ambient noise at the same frequency as people speaking to cover up regular office sounds. This system requires setting up a series of speakers throughout your office space to distribute ambient noise. When established correctly, the ambient noise should block sounds, creating the sensation of a quieter environment for employees.
It may be cost-effective and trendy to use a large open office floorplan, but when business is booming, how do we keep conversations separate and employees as comfortable as possible? You can easily approach this problem with soundproof desk dividers!
When you need to partition out office space, portable soundproof desk dividers will give you the noise cancellation properties you need to improve communication within each partitioned area. Noise cancellation solution for offices is stylish as well as functional. Acoustic desk dividers are available in a variety of colors, textures and patterns that can be designed to match your interior design needs.
Noise-absorbing fiberglass is the key to making office soundproofing materials so effective at controlling echo and unwanted noise. Soundproofing cubicles allow everyone to enjoy private conversations with minimal distractions for other groups and the feeling that they actually have the office to themselves. Easy to set up and created to optimize all floor area sizes, our acoustic desk dividers are shipped to you assembled so all you need to do is arrange them.
One way to manage soundproofing in an office is through the use of acoustic panels. Acoustic panels are specially cut panels made of sound-deadening and sound absorption materials that contain sound within a defined area, so people in communication can easily hear each other without disturbing anyone else.
These sound panels for offices can go directly onto the partitions you’re already using to break up different parts of your open office plan, or they can go on walls or ceilings where you need to contain the sound in a space.
Soundproof Cow offers art acoustic panels made of the highest-quality sound-absorbing and office sound dampening materials. These sound-absorbing panels feature your choice of a variety of artistic designs to match the decor of your office. These are art panels you might install to beautify a drab office, but these have the added benefit of controlling the sound in your office so that your employees can communicate, concentrate and work better.
Designed to suppress reverberation in echo-prone office spaces, Soundproof Cow’s Udderly Quiet™ hanging acoustic baffles minimize echoes to enhance everyone’s ability to understand speech while simultaneously eliminating annoying noise clutter. An effective alternative to acoustic office dividers, hanging panels make great noise reducing office solutions that address aesthetic needs by offering a variety of thicknesses, sizes, colors and materials.
Suspending acoustic baffles in different orientations can create a visual impact and contribute to improving the acoustical properties of any space. When suspended vertically, hanging acoustic baffles offer noise absorption to clarify speech and reduce unwanted noise.
First-rate acoustic baffles for office noise reduction offer the following advantages:
- Made of flame-retardant materials
- Lightweight and simple to hang with S-hooks or chains
- Resilient and dureable
- High-performance noise reduction coefficient (NCR)
- Most options are environmentally friendly
You can use various techniques to help minimize noise throughout your office spaces, but the right solutions can support your daily operations. Soundproofing solutions for offices support your spaces and their functionality to optimize your investment and efforts.
Office Areas That Need Sound Absorption
Office soundproofing efforts can apply to several types of office spaces. Some common office areas that can benefit from soundproofing include:
- Call centers: Call centers create an abundance of noise, with phones ringing and agents talking through problems with customers. You can boost your center’s functionality with soundproofing. These efforts can help employees hear customers better and vice versa by eliminating noisy background distractions.
- Conference rooms: Conference rooms are important meeting points. Departments might gather here to discuss operations and initiatives. Executives can use them to discuss the organization’s direction and investments while meeting with new partners and board members. Soundproofing conference rooms can eliminate outside noises that distract from valuable presentations, creating effective meeting spaces.
- Server rooms: While server rooms typically only house computers and machinery, they can create significant amounts of noise. Racks of equipment running at once produce more sound than single machines. Because computers produce heat when running, server rooms require comprehensive cooling systems. They often use fans, creating more sound in these spaces. Server room soundproofing can protect other office spaces from these loud noises.
When you soundproof several office spaces, you can provide more comprehensive support to your company and employees for better results.
Create Soundproof Offices With Solutions From Soundproof Cow
Soundproof Cow has a variety of excellent solutions for your office soundproofing or other soundproofing needs, whether you have a large office, small office, open floor plan or more traditional office environment. To find out more about all the soundproofing options Soundproof Cow can offer you for your office, restaurant, home or another loud environment, contact us today!
Learn More About Office Soundproofing
- How to Soundproof a Cubicle
- 10 Ways to Reduce Noise in an Open Office
- Ways to Reduce Echoes in Offices
- How to Soundproof Home Offices
Soundproof Other Spaces
I just wanted to let you know that in the end, sealing the air spaces on this door worked just fine and took care of the problem.
I really appreciate you taking so much time to share your expertise with me, and in particular recommending I try the simpler solution before investing in more expensive noise barriers. That is a big credit to you and your business.
- Mike