Noisy Offices Impacting Wellness and Productivity

Noisy offices are having a negative impact on the wellbeing of workers and significantly impacting their productivity, according to a major new UK survey.

The Remark Group surveyed 1,000 office workers across the UK, and found 65 percent said noise in the workplace impacted on their ability to complete work in an accurate and timely manner.

The problem also appears to be affecting workers’ mental health – 44 percent said noise had a negative impact on their overall wellbeing, and over 40 percent said noise at work caused them to feel stressed.

The survey found 52 percent of workers said they were interrupted by noise distractions more than five times in a working day, and 17 percent said this was more than 10 times a day.

Some research claims that every time we are interrupted, it takes 15 minutes to get back in a state of focus – potentially meaning over an hour of wasted time each day for over half of the workforce.

UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering senior lecturer, Dr Nigel Oseland, said the research showed noise was the “biggest cause of dissatisfaction in the modern workplace, along with an associated loss of performance, increases stress and poorer wellbeing.”

“As more companies are adopting open plan design and agile working, the core challenge to the workplace community, designers and suppliers is to resolve office noise distraction and enhance focussed work, whilst maintaining collaborative and creative environments. Remark’s research and services contribute to providing the solution.”

According to the survey, sudden bursts of noise are the most irritating in the workplace, with the most annoying being: colleagues’ telephone conversations (74%); personal conversations (65%); sudden laughter (62%); telephone ring tones (58%); doors slamming (56%); eating noises (55%); business conversations (53%); coughing/sneezing/sniffing (50%)and music (40%).

Penelope Harrall of the Remark Group said open plan office environments – initially designed to encourage communication and collaboration – had significant downsides, and encouraged workplaces to adopt sound masking technology.

“Compulsory in any new-build offices in the USA, sound masking systems operate to reduce both general office noises and conversational distractions, even in an open plan environment, and in turn increase performance levels, eliminate distractions and enhance the overall wellbeing of employees.

More findings:

• 51% of people have overhead a confidential topic being discussed outside of work, ie a GP surgery, hospital, lawyers’ office or school/college

• 54% say noise is an issue at work

• Over 25% of offices don’t have private rooms for meetings

• 33% of offices don’t have a quiet, private place which employees can use, if needed

• 71% say their offices would benefit from a private place for discussions

• 38% say their opinions on how to improve workplace environment are not valued by employer