Privacy In An Office Situation

Irrelevant and distracting noise at work is stopping many workers from being fully creative. Ensuring ‘acoustic privacy’ is a challenge for many work places. And as the trend toward open-plan offices continues, experts are starting to identify the problems that that conversational 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.

The increase in volume has coincided with the elimination of dividing walls in offices and the rise of the open-plan office, as well as increasing numbers of workers per square foot. Privacy is an obvious casualty. The driving factor, of course, has been cutting expenses. It’s much cheaper to leave out the partitions, and the drive for higher employees’ densities has encouraged this advance.

However, the minimalist style that is so popular at present has made the situation more difficult. Since this style favors hard surfaces like exposed brick, marble, and glass, sound is reflected rather than absorbed. In most offices, interior aesthetics are given more consideration than acoustics.

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. It is hard for companies to ensure their workers acoustic privacy. With more open-plan office now than ever before experts are finding that conversational distractions can also cause work place problems as well. Another important aspect of this issue today in the workplace is the HIPAA legislation. Covering - known as “Sound Masking” or “White Noise” provides the biggest 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.

- Frank Barnett

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