sound masking and acoustic panels | making …...2018/10/17 · noise reduction coefficient (nrc)...

Smart WorkspacesNeed Smart Acoustics

The open office is now smarter.

Smaller computers and the mobile workforce require smaller and fewer workstations1, and office space gets more and more expensive in desirable locations. Enterprises large and small maximize every space in their offices, or have it designed (or redesigned) that way, not just to cut costs but to foster ‘team’ culture.

Remote work is making waves but it has its own set of problems: while technology no longer hinders collaboration, too much remote work still leads to the distractions of travel and home life, a disconnect with colleagues and the company culture, and therefore the threat of disengagement and slowed knowledge transfer.2

So decision makers and designers are making progress in foresight and understanding of what makes a workplace attractive and effective for solo productivity and team collaboration, knowledge sharing, worker engagement and satisfaction.

Private offices, cubicles and the open plan office are evolving to workers’ choice environments.3

Activity Based Working or Zones

Employees are given a wide range of collaboration and focus spaces. No seats or workstations assigned.

• Task-based setups, assigned for groups or teams, not individuals

• Zones within a zone which teams and creatives can occupy when they need it, for collaboration and knowledge transfer

Co-working

As mentioned above, buildings now offer the resources of an office for anyone who needs them. In a company’s office, a co-working space could be a certain room with specific tools, machines and technology individual employees or teams can take advantage of as needed, like high speed internet, large HD screens, etc.

The open office is here to stay.

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1900 Firman Dr., #800 Richardson, TX 75081 USA

Phone 866-557-8438Fax 972-526-5333

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20181017

Your biggest investment is not office space.Cost per square foot is nothing to revenue per square foot. Without acoustic design, every square foot costs more money instead of delivering value.

Revenue comes from efficient, effective people. Efficiency comes from happy employees. The above work environments-- open offices, pop up offices, activity-based and coworking spaces-- only work if the employees flourish in them.Your biggest investment is your workers. We’ve made it our mission to make workers’ lives better by improving the environments they work in.

Employees’ top frustration in the workplace is noise and distraction.

Unconventional spaces-- warehouses, residential apartments, courtyards, building cellars and attics, even former subway stations-- attract CEOs and designers for office expansion or conversion. Sprawling square footage and/or soaring ceilings fool the eye and the open plan office, no matter how many desks, chairs, storage and equipment, wouldn’t look too cramped and crowded. But the trade-off for this hip, modern aesthetic is horrible acoustics.

• 50% of employees in open-office plans and 60% of employees in cubicles are frustrated with the lack of speech privacy in their work environment.

• 75% of employees rated workplace acoustics as the worst aspect of their office environment.

• More than 80% believed their acoustic environment hindered their productivity.6

Customer retention rates are 18% higher on average when

employees are highly engaged.- (Cvent)4

The adjective Americansused most frequently to

describe their workplaceswas “stressful.“

- Steelcase, Ipsos research2

Disengaged or otherwise distracted employees leak money in salaries and lost revenue.

Independent studies found that the average worker in an open office environment loses 45 to 60 minutes per day to conversational distractions. 100 workers, with average salaries of $45k per employee, amount to a loss of $14,468 every month for the company.

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Phone 866-557-8438Fax 972-526-5333

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In Europe, studies have estimated the annual cost of office noise levels at £30 billion. In the United States, a BASEX study found that distracted, disengaged workers cost organizations like yours a total of almost $600 billion annually.

Workspaces that fail have a common denominator: bad acoustics. The most common type is the lack of workplace privacy: overheard conversation that leads to distracted, stressed employees.

A worker in an open office typically gets interrupted every 11 minutes. And it takes up to 25 minutes to get back on track. 5 Open office noise can even make an employee fumble with basic arithmetic, and reduces the ability to recall information.6

The results are:

• High Error Rates

• High Stress

• High Turnover

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Aside from the costs of employee error rates and absenteeism, the top three challenges faced by HR organizations today are turnover, employee engagement, and succession planning. (SHRM)

• 45% of millennials would leave if their work environment is too stressful.

• Disengaged employees are on average 18% less productive, have 27% higher rates of absenteeism and 62% higher rates of illness/injury. And in the end these employees are also 20-40% more likely to seek employment elsewhere.

• Independent studies indicate that the average worker in an open office environment loses 45-60 minutes a day to conversational distractions.

• $11 billion is lost annually due to employee turnover (Bloomberg BNA) (Commonly cited statistic, source link unfound)

• Millennial turnover costs the U.S. economy $30.5 billion annually (Gallup)

• Cost of replacing entry level employees: 30-50% of their annual salary (ERE Media)

• Cost of replacing mid-level employees: 150% of their annual salary (ERE Media)

• Cost of replacing high-level or highly specialized employees: 400% of their annual salary (ERE Media)

• 53% of HR pros say that the highest priority in the coming year is to retain top talent (Xerox)

...Or too quiet.The high visibility in the open office can also mean less personal or even business calls if a quick IM, email or text would serve the purpose better. Computers no longer hum and keyboards no longer clack like typewriters did before. Copy machines and printers are quieter, or made redundant by email, e-signatures, and document sharing and cloud storage.

The lack of background noise or activity makes speech intelligible and distracting, invading an employee’s thoughts as he/she strains to hear (instinctual curiosity) or strains to ignore (trying to focus).

The cause and costs of bad acoustics

Everything is either too noisy...The current architectural and interior design trend of exposed brick, cement, stone and steel makes sounds bounce and reverberate, making speech privacy impossible without intervention within the space.

Cubicle walls are lower or absent. Sound and speech travel longer distances unimpeded. Colleagues talking to each other or to clients raise their voices to be heard above all that audible speech and noise. The result is a hubbub employees have to fight to work through or soon need to get away from, resulting in stress, error rates and dissatisfaction, absenteeism and eventual departure.

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Phone 866-557-8438Fax 972-526-5333

[email protected]

Cost Benefit and Flexibility of Panels and Sound Masking

The cost effective solution for environmental acoustic control are the ABC’s of speech privacy.

Absorption, Blocking, CoveringWall and ceiling acoustic panels absorb and block sound, greatly reducing the noise and speech that bounce off hard surfaces. Think stone floors and walls and today’s favored ceilings, either too low or too high.

Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) ratings of .75 or higher in wall or ceiling acoustic panels absorb sound. If ceiling tiles aren’t possible, wall mounted acoustic panels come in so many shapes and designs that pull double duty of adding dimension to the workspace.

When ceiling tiles and panels do their jobs, the room can get too quiet. In libraries, surveys find that the noise problem comes from hallways and adjacent offices. The study rooms are quiet, but external speech floats in, the talk in group study rooms, noise from the snack machines or the nearby quad, or the librarians going about their work at the office.

This is where sound masking--Covering sound--comes in.

How Sound Masking WorksToo much quiet can be as problematic as too much noise. In libraries, surveys find that the noise problem comes from hallways and adjacent offices. The study rooms are quiet, but external speech floats in, the talk in group study rooms, noise from the snack machines or the nearby quad, or the librarians going about their work at the office.

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Phone 866-557-8438Fax 972-526-5333

[email protected]

A smart acoustic environment is a workplace designed or equipped to absorb and block noise, and also allow or produce that background hum, filling in and blanketing the workspace with a comfortable, unstructured sound, making speech unintelligible and removing its distracting power.

Fortune 500 companies install sound masking for that reason. Studies show that this low-level noise is better than silence at coaxing workers to function at a higher level.7 For libraries, hospitals and hospitality, panels and sound masking shield students, patients and staff from disturbance.

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Phone 866-557-8438Fax 972-526-5333

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The radius of distraction

The average office has a radius of distraction of 30-60 feet. Sound masking reduces that to 10-15 feet or less, by filling in the space with unstructured, low-level sound.

Security and confidentiality

One team can be privy to information not meant for another team. A co-working space with competitors as neighbors is a security risk no one would take on unless the space has a buffer for privacy. Sound masking and panels plug the potential leak of sensitive information within and outside your company.

Happy employees and revenue benefits

Speech privacy removes the frustration and drain of morale due to lack of control in the workplace environment, and has immediate and quantifiable results among employees:

• Focus is improved by 40%

• Distractions reduced by 51%

• Stress reduced by 27%

• Error rates reduced by 10%

• Productivity increased by 10% - 40%

The radius of distraction: Sound masking reduces the distance speech travels and

remains intelligible.

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Phone 866-557-8438Fax 972-526-5333

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The right idea, done right

The evolution of the open office into smart workspaces is the right idea that only needs to be done right-- with a human experience focus rather than a space focus.

Without acoustic privacy--absorption, blocking and covering-- smart workspaces would fail or may not be used at all. A team in the designated collaboration space would be overheard by employees in other designated spaces. Once this is discovered, people would simply stop using zones until you offer an alternative that allows them to put their heads together without causing stress to colleagues.

Costs down the road would involve retrofitting or expanding into other spaces in the building, making use of attics and basements, empty offices, refurbishing them as designated workspaces for specific purposes: meetings, private conversations, or for working undisturbed.

There’s often a battle royale for private workstations, with employees who don’t make it into one having to grit their teeth and try to be productive in the open office.

Panels and sound masking keep everyone together without disturbing each other, helping achieve company goals without significantly raising costs in design and installation.

The workers are your greatest asset and expense. Keep them happy so you can keep them. 75% of the causes of employee turnover are preventable.8 Work styles vary, so workplace privacy needs and the right types of workplace design should also vary.

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Phone 866-557-8438Fax 972-526-5333

[email protected]

To find out the perfect combination of panels and sound masking for your workplace, talk to an acoustic system representative at:

References:

1 CoreNet Global, Worldwide Assoc. for Corporate Real Estate and Workplace Professionals http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/office-space-per-worker-will-drop-to-100-square-feet-or-below-for-many-companies-within-five-years-according-to-newresearch-from-corenet-global-140702483.html

2 Christine Congdon, Donna Flynn, Melanie Redman, Balancing “We” and “Me”: The Best Collaborative Spaces Also Support Solitude, https://hbr.org/2014/10/balancing-we-and-me-the-best-collaborative-spaces-also-support-solitude 2014

3 Kay Sargent, Betsy Nurse, Andy Warner Lacy, Moving Beyond Open Plan Spaces, Work Design Magazine https://workdesign.com/2017/09/moving-beyond-open-plan-spaces/ 2017

4 Colloquy.com, For Loyal Customers, Look to Your Employees, https://www.colloquy.com/loyalty-strategies/for-loyal-customers-look-to-your-employees/ 2014

5 Gloria Mark, Daniela Gudith, Ulrick Klocke, The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stresshttps://www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/chi08-mark.pdf

6 Sarah Green Carmichael, Research: Cubicles Are the Absolute Worst, https://hbr.org/2013/11/research-cubicles-are-the-absolute-worst 2013

7 Josh Davis, How Background Noise Affects the Way You Work, https://www.fastcompany.com/3051835/how-background-noise-affects-the-way-you-work 2015

8. Valerie Bolden-Barrett, Study: Turnover costs employers $15,000 per worker http://www.hrdive.com/news/study-turnover-costs-employers-15000-per-worker/449142/ 2017

Speech Privacy SystemsToll Free: 866-557-8438

www.SpeechPrivacySystems.com

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Phone 866-557-8438Fax 972-526-5333

[email protected]

sound masking and acoustic panels | making …...2018/10/17 · noise reduction coefficient (nrc)...

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