Many businesses opt for open office plans in their buildings. Open office spaces help foster a collaborative and friendly environment where impromptu meetings can solve problems immediately rather than waiting for the next meeting. 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 in an open-office still can become grating, which impacts both productivity and well-being.

By designating even a couple of 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 also provide them for collaborative work. When your team is given a designated place to 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

It’s a fact that 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 even to hear oneself think, and nobody, not even your company’s resident crowd-loving social butterfly, can get anything done in those conditions!

Reducing office noise distractions allows your workers to have idea-generating discussions with those close to them. Similar discussions at a distance are dampened so as to 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.

Sound Masking Increases Worker Comfort

Sound masking is a great way to increase worker comfort and productivity. It helps to protect private conversations and makes a space more comfortable for everyone, no matter their personality type. When your office isn’t as full, sound masking can help eliminate echo and traveling conversations. Overall, sound masking reduces extra noise that can be distracting to your employees. This helps employees think and produce better work. 

Is Sound Masking the Same as White Noise?

White noise is different than sound masking. With white noise, a static noise is produced in an area, adding to the chaos rather than subduing it. Sound masking has a unique ability to adjust to the noise levels in the space, making it louder or softer to compensate for more or less people talking.

In general, white noise does not solve your sound issues. White noise is also localized, whereas sound masking fills an entire room with set devices working together. A way to describe this is that when you hear white noise, you can pinpoint where it is coming from. You cannot pinpoint the source of sound masking, making it a much more suitable option for office environments.

Fitting Sound Masking into Your Budget

When you hear “sound masking” for the first time, you might think “expensive.” However, sound masking isn’t as tough on the wallet as some may assume.

Sound masking has a high ROI because your employees become more productive and less distracted by distant conversations and noise. The cost of installing a sound masking system falls between $1.00-$3.00 per square foot. Not as much of a sticker shock, is it?

If you want to get specific about how sound masking can improve your ROI, check out Building Systems Solutions’ sound masking ROI calculator. By entering a few numbers, you can see an estimate of your ROI if you install a sound masking system in your office.

Contact BSS & Take Charge of Sound in Your Workplace

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 comfort and focus.

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.