Monthly Archives : March 2014

In just one short month, it will be May (already?) Springtime has inspired countless songs, but not everyone has the chance to hear these lovely melodies. A full 12% of the US population suffers from hearing loss and can’t fully enjoy the wonderful world of sound. That’s 38 million people! While hearing loss can often begin at birth or occur later due to illness or aging, more than 25 million people in the US have noise-induced hearing loss. Because this problem is so widespread, May is designated as “Better Hearing Month”.

As a reminder that employers and employees should pay more attention to noise hazards, Miracle-Ear Foundation and 3M have put together a hearing loss prevention campaign. They call it “One Day without Sound”. On May 1^st, 2014, they are asking people everywhere to remove sound from their lives (as much as possible) for one full day.

Can You NOT Hear Me Now?

The soundless day provides an opportunity to educate communities and employers about the impact of loud noise. Participants can register at onedaywithoutsound.org to receive more information and prevention tips along with a pair of ear plugs that greatly reduce perceived noise levels. Slip these in your ears, and you’ll get a small taste of what it’s like to have noise-induced hearing loss. That certainly won’t make it possible to fully understand the frustrations of actual hearing impairment, but it may raise awareness about how much we take our good hearing for granted.

Keeping It Down at Work

More than 30 million Americans are exposed to potentially harmful sounds at work. That’s one very good reason to make sure your workplace has an up-to-date noise abatement plan. However, it’s not just the dangerous levels of noise that can be a problem. Many employees report high stress levels and difficulty concentrating from prolonged exposure to phones ringing, coworkers talking too loudly, or just the general hustle and bustle of the office. Our desktop panels and cubicle wall extenders help limit these chronic annoyances so employees can enjoy their workday more. Think of our OBEX panels as ear plugs for your employees’ workstations!

Law office furniture often seems to be the only holdout in the march to modernity. While tech companies and even shoe manufacturers embrace the trendy and the quirky, law firms still have a reputation for stodgy design. There’s nothing wrong with dark wood (or wood veneer) and lots of frosted glass. But even legal firms don’t all have to look alike. A law office that wants to gain a reputation for creative, effective representation may do well to reconsider whether its interior design makes the practice look out of touch. That’s not to say they have to remake the layout to resemble one of Google’s “imaginariums”. But it’s possible to have a contemporary feel without going overboard. Here are some ideas that may help:

Elegant Knoll

When you really want to impress clients with refined style, go with the Flo. The lounge furnishings designed by Florence Knoll have timeless appeal. This particular collection says: “We care about quality”. At the same time, it isn’t so flashy that clients will wonder if you are padding their bill to pay for lavish office furniture. The collection features seating options in many sizes to fit everything from a modest reception area to a casual meeting room.

Confidential MAiSPACE

A dark conference room with overstuffed chairs and a marble topped table may look impressive. But it can also be intimidating and gloomy. You don’t want clients to lose all sense of hope when they are attending a deposition. Keep things a little on the lighter side with modular meeting rooms that send a different message: “This too shall pass.” The type of installations provided by MAiSPACE are a good example of how glass and movable architectural walls can offer a sense of enclosure without making clients feel caged.

Private OBEX

Privacy is always one of the top concerns for most legal clients. This means the popular open office plans aren’t a good option for clerical workers. At the same time, you don’t want staff to feel too isolated. Panel extenders offer a way to enhance workstations so that employees and clients get the sense of greater control over confidential information. With muted panel colors, acoustic fabrics, and classy aluminum frames, these panels are the right fit for any law office furniture.

A Swedish study published by the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors indicates that open plan offices really do make workers sick. The retrospective survey of over 1,850 people found that those in open offices fared worst. The study found “A significant excess risk for sickness absence was found in terms of short sick leave spells in the three open-plan offices.” In other words, workers were more likely to call in sick for a day or two when they were in an open plan setting. Men seemed particularly stressed by flex plan offices (hot desking with no assigned workstations). Women took more lengthy sick leaves if they had to work in large open offices.

Too Much Noise, Too Little Control

The researchers suggest that environmental stressors inherent in open plan offices may be partially to blame. They point to the example of, “architectural features that lead to a lack of visual and acoustic privacy in combination with the functional features that are related to job characteristics such as lack of autonomy.” Sometimes, employees may become so stressed that they simply need to take time off to decompress. Or, they may have less ability to isolate themselves from other workers. That means the cold or flu going around is going to spread with ease. The more people crammed into the space, the bigger this problem is likely to get.

Keeping Workers Well = Treating Them Well

Interestingly, it’s apparently not sharing space that’s the issue. Employees in shared-room offices didn’t take a significantly different number of sick days compared to those in individual offices. Interestingly, one of the features the study used to define a shared office was this: Workstations are freely arranged in the room. For privacy reasons, sometimes screens or other divisional elements are added between workstations.

Few businesses are likely to address noise and privacy issues by putting workers back in offices—shared or otherwise. Instead, the focus is on reducing distractions and giving employees more control over workstation configuration. Our desktop panels and cubicle wall extenders can do both since we provide a range of heights and colors in materials that minimize noise and increase visual privacy.

At OBEX, we specialize in minimizing noise transmission in the space between desks. But this is just one part of the noise abatement puzzle. If you’ve ever worked in a building that has tile flooring or glass walls, you know that every surface in the office has an impact on how loud the environment seems. Ceilings are another critical component in sound control. Here’s an overview of how ceilings affect sound and some exciting solutions in this space.

Why the Wrong Ceilings Make Noise Worse

First, it’s important to understand a little about how sound reverberating and reflecting off of ceilings can impact the experience of workers. In areas that have exposed ceilings instead of dropped ceilings, sound waves bounce off the ceiling and are redirected back down into the workspace. The smaller the room, the more of a problem the direct reflection of sound tends to be. Noises such as phones ringing, coworkers talking, or foot traffic passing can quickly become a distraction. With a high, hard ceiling, the sound reverberates even more. People raise their voices to be heard—even though that just makes the problem worse.

Hidden Costs Abound with Sound

The loss of productivity is just one challenge posed by bad ceiling acoustics. Lynn Proctor Windle at Facilities.net offers another great insight into the hidden costs of this problem. She points out that phone equipment is often erroneously blamed when phone conversations are muddled and difficult to understand. In fact, if voice clarity degrades significantly in conference calls vs. individual calls, this is almost always caused by ambient noise being detected by the microphones in the teleconferencing equipment. The human ear doesn’t usually notice this sound until it is picked up and fed directly through the speakers.

Noise Abatement Solutions Don’t Have to Be Expensive

If a space is renovated and the ceiling is left open for a modern “industrial” look, it can be pretty expensive to install a complete suspended acoustical tile ceiling. However it’s possible to install panels instead that can be arranged around existing lights, HVAC, and sprinklers. You can check out an example of these “ceiling clouds” at SMG or Pinta-Acoustic. We like the innovative retrofitting approach. It reminds us a lot of our own panels. Easy to install, cheaper than tearing out what you have and rebuilding, and very attractive!