acoustic wellness: why acoustics are key to healthy office design
What does healthy office design look like to your company? Well-designed offices can’t be rivalled when it comes to facilitating collaboration and promoting a positive company culture. The challenge for employers in the age of hybrid working is enticing workers into the office to ensure the business sees the fruits of these benefits.
However, workers need convincing. The flexibility of remote working means employees are able to prioritise their workplace wellbeing in a way that wasn’t possible before, so offices need to be able to compete with the comforts of home.
why acoustic wellness leads to happy employees
An often overlooked factor of worker happiness is having a comfortable level of noise in the workplace. One survey shows that poor acoustics are one of the key causes of dissatisfaction for employees, with over half of UK office workers saying that noise is a huge factor on their workplace wellbeing.
Conversations, music, phones and coughing are just a few of the factors that create irritating distractions that could be avoided if employees decide to work from home.
58% of UK office workers say noise has a high impact on their stress levels in the workplace, and the raised blood pressure this causes can lead to long-term heart problems. It’s not exactly a huge draw for workers sceptical about coming into the office.
A particular issue is the prevalence of open-plan offices. As they look stylish and can be great for encouraging collaboration and creativity, open-plan offices are a pervasive trend for modern businesses. However, the combination of open space and highly reverberant surfaces often found in open-plan offices means that noise is amplified – along with employees’ frustrations.
A balancing act is needed; modern offices should be places of collaboration, but they also have to provide a certain level of ambience that supports focus and improves workplace wellbeing.
so what does this look like for employees?
Excessive noise makes it much harder to get any work done, with some studies stating that poor acoustics make employees 66% less productive. Many of us will try and use music to block out distracting noise, however this raises sound levels by 9dB and music, especially if it has a lot of lyrics and can be even more distracting. Three-quarters of staff have said they need to take walks outside to try and regain focus during working hours because of excess noise.
Moreover, noise is proven to cause stress which can lead to a range of health issues such as hypertension, heart disease and diabetes. People who work in open-plan offices take 70% more sick days than home workers, so it’s not hard to imagine how this amount of staff taking days off will tank a company’s productivity.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported in 2011 that noise pollution contributed to 1.7m years of life lost in Europe. Unknown to many, but excessive noise will also make you more likely to slouch. If you have poor posture throughout your working day, it’s possible that you could develop musculoskeletal disorders causing pain and discomfort throughout your life.
how can we improve workplace wellbeing through acoustics?
Thankfully, there is now a push for healthy office designs, not only for their appearance but more importantly the experience for its inhabitants. More designers are looking to create working environments that are fit for purpose and can help improve an employee’s health and wellbeing along with their productivity and social behaviours.
At Oscar Acoustics, we have the most extensive range of acoustic solutions, including acoustic sprays, acoustic plaster, soundproofing and thermal insulation, to help you get your acoustics right. This will help to protect your staff’s acoustic wellness and their productivity in the workplace. Whether it be for a fit-out, refurbishment or new build, taking acoustics seriously and removing distractions caused by excess noise will ensure your workspace sounds as good as it looks.
finding balance with the right acoustic solution
With the right approach, workplaces can be transformed into healthy spaces which encourage collaboration efforts while offering workers the acoustic harmony they’re looking for. In order to achieve this, you’ll need to find the right acoustic solution.
SonaSpray is Oscar Acoustics’ range of noise dampening acoustic sprays. Easily applicable to most substrates, SonaSpray absorbs sound rather than reflecting it, meaning that noise remains at a tolerable level even in the busiest offices.
Applying SonaSpray puts a check on unwanted noise, prioritising employees’ wellbeing and making the office an appealing place to be. It enables teams to chat and brainstorm together without raising their voices or worrying about distracting their colleagues.
In short, SonaSpray creates a healthy office design that equates to happy workers. If you’d like to find out more about how our acoustic solutions could promote collaboration within your organisation and improve your workplace wellbeing, please get in touch.
