Open office plans are certainly a craze sweeping the American workplace—and for good reason. By fostering a collaborative and friendly atmosphere, they allow teams to put their heads together to solve problems and generally make everyone feel included. However, not every employee likes being surrounded by ceaseless chatter all the time, so as a business owner, it’s your job to take responsibility for your open office’s sound management.
Provide Spaces for Quiet Work
Even if your less-extroverted team members wear headphones, for some the constant noise that comes with working open-office still can become grating, which impacts both productivity and wellbeing. By designating even a couple side rooms as quiet zones, you allow these workers to flourish in an environment where they can get stuff done to the best of their ability.
Isolate Noisy Areas
Just as you provide spaces for quiet work, you should provide them for collaborative work, too. When your team is given a designated place to, say, make relatively loud conference calls or excitedly discuss ideas, quiet rooms will stay quieter and your extroverted employees can truly shine. It’s a win-win for every type of worker!
Ensure the Ultimate in Comfort With Sound Masking
We’ve discussed previously how sound management systems fit into all office cultures and structures—including your open one. The right sound masking systems diminish the noticeability of faraway conversations while retaining the speech intelligibility of nearby ones.
This can be useful for open office plans especially, as when conversations all across the room are left unregulated, it gets hard to even hear oneself think—and nobody, not even your company’s resident crowd-loving social butterfly, can get anything done in those conditions!
By reducing office noise distractions, you allow your workers to have idea-generating discussions with those close to them. Similar discussions at a distance are dampened so as to thus provide a disturbance-free workspace. Everyone, from the worker who craves silence to the one who is always the life of the party, can appreciate that.
Contact Building Systems Solutions and Take Charge of Your Workspace’s Sound
Looking for more things your business can do to reduce unwanted noise? Our Blaine team of custom sound-masking system designers can help you create a workplace that’s the epitome of comfortable and focused. With our adaptive Soft dB products and our countless satisfied clients served, you know you’re in good hands. Give us a call today at 763-502-1515.