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Distracting noise in the workplace limits many employees from being fully productive. Providing ‘acoustic privacy‘ for workers is a challenge for employers. As office trends move toward more open work space plans, experts are discovering and identifying problems that personal conversations and other distractions can cause.

As volume increases, workers’ privacy and comfort levels fall. They spend their mental energy trying to drown out noise rather than on the task at hand. And the most distracting noises of all are the sounds of our colleagues’ voices in discussion.

While the volume has gone up, walls have been eliminated. There are more open-plan workplaces under construction, and more employees are expected to fill the same amount of available space. Obviously, what is lost in the process is any semblance of privacy. All of this has of course been done in the name of cost-cutting. Why not save money by doing away with partitions and cramming your workers together like so many sardines in a can?

Architects, clients and designers, who favor a minimalist style, have made the situation much more difficult. While solid surfaces like exposed brick, marble or glass are stylish, they have the problem of reflecting sound instead of absorbing it. Acoustics take a backseat to aesthetics in the majority of office internal layouts.

Servers as well as other workplace apparatus can be set up with acoustic hoods but the primary concern is over disruption caused by conversation. Some noise is predictable and efforts to absorb block and cover noise are the best course of action at the office. Of these three, covering works best.

Covering – known as “Sound Masking” or “White Noise” provides the biggest privacy boost and costs the least. While you’ll probably need to add sound-absorbent wall or ceiling panels, or raise your cubicle walls, sound masking is the logical place to start, and often provides enough privacy on its own to do the job.

Many workers have a difficult time being creative at their jobs because of unrelated and distracting noises. Privacy is an obvious casualty. It is hard for companies to ensure their workers acoustic work space. With more open-plan office now than ever before experts are finding that conversational distractions can also cause work place problems as well. While you’ll probably need to add sound-absorbent wall or ceiling panels, or raise your cubicle walls, sound masking is the logical place to start, and often provides enough protection on its own to do the job. Search for ‘HIPAA‘ to learn more.

- Frank Barnett