Yes, another catch-all term: well-being. What does that even mean in the workplace?
It’s about physical and mental health and beyond. In the workplace, it involves optimizing the health of all workers in the broadest sense of the word. Think of aspects such as the office environment, the team, employment conditions and the right balance between responsibilities, tasks, training and support from management. All these things influence individual happiness and job satisfaction.
Employers can positively influence several of these factors. The more progressive ones already facilitate in a practical sense, e.g. in work-out, bicycles, a healthy lunch and so on. However, the well-being of employees is more than just having access to a treadmill. Well-being is a much wider concept that ultimately needs a holistic approach. One interesting angle within this is the interior design perspective, especially the effect that interior design has on acoustics. So let’s dive into the reasons for challenging acoustic problems.
It probably won’t surprise you that the widespread adoption of the open-plan office has led to greater challenges in terms of privacy and proper sound control — with a major impact on employees’ well-being as a result.
72% of office workers are dissatisfied about the privacy of their workplace
These trends are caused by:
The message is loud and clear. An open-plan office has a negative impact on the quality of the acoustics. The sounds are not absorbed by the environment and will reverberate and echo.
When are we talking about reverberation or echo? Sometimes there are misunderstandings about this but they have one thing in common: both reverberation and echo are sounds as a result of an acoustic problem. Here’s the difference:
Reverberation is the persistence of sound after the sound source stops. It is caused by a lot of reflected waves. Our brain can perceive this as a continuous sound. Echo on the other hand, occurs when a sound impulse is heard twice. When this sound is slowed down, our brain can perceive it as a separate event, compared to a sound reverberation.
The diagram below clearly shows the difference:
Noise pollution occurs when the noise is continuous or when it interferes with the comfort/quality of employees with normal hearing sensitivity. The sounds are not absorbed by the environment and will reverberate and echo.
70% of office workers say they would be more productive if their offices were less noisy
All sounds affect us and cause a certain amount of stress. The best way is to ask the employees themselves; to what extent do they experience noise pollution and does it affect their productivity? Research shows that 70% of office workers say they are more productive when the office is less noisy.
If you want to solve an acoustic problem effectively, you need to investigate and tackle the cause of the problem, focusing on the specific situation. When all aspects are taken into account in your open-plan offices, your employees will have a better focus and concentration power.
Without jumping to conclusions, it’s for sure that noise harms a person's workplace well-being. Here we focus on the relationship between the well-being of employees in the office and noise (pollution).
Roughly half of the UK work in open-plan office environments, a system which was initially designed to encourage communication and collaboration between employees. Yet, with this design comes an increase in annoying and distracting workplace sounds, such as telephone ringtones, sudden bursts of laughter and phone conversations. These are proven to be distracting and have profound effects on employee stress levels and well-being, not to mention the impact they have on loss in productivity.
Penelope Harrall, Ramark Group
Whether the noise is dominant or not, it influences people on a psychological, behavioural and cognitive level. A few reasons why:
For the well-being of employees, the right level of ambient sound is required. As mentioned before, the office should not be too loud or too quiet. Playing (somewhat neutral) music can be a solution to banish absolute silence and prevent people from being too self-conscious to speak.
A proper open-plan office has the necessary rooms, specially designed for absolute silence for those who need it at times. It must be possible to withdraw for a meeting or simply to work in a concentrated manner. Enable employees to choose where they pay their attention.
Colour also has a psychological influence on people. Grey and white tones tend to arise depressed feelings, while blue has a more positive impact on people's mood for example. When you think of acoustic solutions, most products are available in many colours. Consider colour choice too, as a part of employees’ overall well-being.
Bringing it all together...
it’s clear that acoustic solutions are an essential part of the design process for offices or workspaces.
Most employers want to contribute to the individual ambitions of their workers and thereby give a boost to the achievement of mutual objectives. So basically, contributing to the well-being in the office concerns a bigger goal. A healthy workplace is one where employers and employees work together to support and endeavor good health. Investing in overall well-being is a sustainable investment that’s beneficial for both parties. That is why we listed 5 acoustics solutions for office design.
After all: healthy workers are happy workers!