Monthly Archives : June 2014

What does your office really sound like? If you had to recreate the ambience of your workplace, how realistic would it seem? Sound engineer Iwan Gabovitch has put together a pretty convincing 2 hour segment of office noises on “SoundLikeTube”. It’s a lengthy, looping clip that is designed for use in video or audio productions. Other suggested uses are:

• Playing it in the background when you need to pretend you’re at work
• Adding it to the ambient noise of your real office to make your business seem bigger
• Using it to feel less lonely at a work from home job

In fact, most of us tune out the noise in the office after a while (although it still creates stress at a subconscious level). Here are just a few of the sounds you might hear if you really start listening:

1. People talking (blah, blah, chatter, laugh, blah, blah)
2. Office printers running (whir, chug, chug—paper jam!)
3. Papers being shuffled (rustle, rustle, rustle)
4. Cell phones vibrating (that buzzing sound of a phone sitting on a desk is still audible with the ringer turned off)
5. Staplers (Whack! Breathless pause…whack!)
6. Keyboard and mouse (the click, tap, tap, tap, click never stops)
7. Music playing from the guy wearing headphones with the volume cranked up (either something you wish you could hear or something you’d like to block out.
8. Chip or snack containers—arguably one of the most annoying sounds in any office (crinkle, crinkle)
9. Air conditioning or heating (whoosh, whoosh, hum just at the edge of your hearing range)
10. File cabinet drawers opening and closing (scrape, thunk, scrape, thunk, someone please get the WD40!)

It’s a wonder anyone can work in an office with all that racket. If you’re ready to start cutting down on the distractions, OBEX can help. We can add height and additional sound reduction to your existing cubicle walls to limit office noise intrusion. For workstations without panels, consider our desktop mounted acoustic panels. Employees can choose to turn their desk into a cube and finally get enough peace and quiet to really concentrate. Click through to see our full range of cubicle panel extenders.

This year, a fresh crop of vendors is rising to address the challenge of office noise control in the modern workpsace. While providing separation between employees at the workstation level is important, there are many other areas of the office that can also be acoustically upgraded for better sound absorption. Here are a few of the newest items available for helping businesses keep the noise down.

See Through Doesn’t Mean “Hear Through”

Glass is a lovely architectural component, but it poses special challenges for acoustic control. If the glass is too thin, sound can pass right through, and there’s no confidentiality. If it’s too dense, sound bounces right back into the workspace and reverberates. Unika Vaev is addressing this issue with “Glass Cover”—a 100% wool felt product that can be installed in attractive shapes and patterns to add visual interest and sound absorption to expansive glass walls.

Let the Sky Fold

SKYFOLD sounds like the name of a James Bond thriller, and the special effects are certainly something to see. This vertically foldable operative wall system accordions down from the ceiling, providing an instant reduction in noise on both sides of the panel. The STC rating is as high as 60, guaranteeing that meetings stay “top secret”. The system is electric rather than manual, for a very hush, hush operation. These motorized panels are available in a wide range of sizes and have even been installed at Texas A&M to divide up lecture rooms to host multiple simultaneous presentations.

Modern, Mobile, Modi

The Modi screen is a new take on the mobile acoustic privacy screen. It features a wood core with acoustic panels of wool felt (that seems to be the textile of the year), and can be provided in a number of different colors. The wheel can be outfitted in a contrasting hue for added whimsy. There’s a handy handle on the side so the screen is easy to tote from one workstation to another. This might even make a nice temporary door for a cubicle.

What new tools will you use to bring acoustic balance to your offices this year? Let us know in the comments.

As business owners, we all have a lot to learn from one another. If you want to get your finger on the pulse of the small business community, check out the Succeed: Small Business Network on LinkedIn. This group of 80,000 business professionals offers a wide variety of perspectives on just about any topic you can imagine. For example, here’s a snapshot of their opinions on open office design.

• If a job involves sensitive information, an enclosed office is a necessity.
• Open plans work best for people who are in and out of the office—not those who are there the entire workday.
• Closed floor plans require workers to schedule time together, reducing interruptions during the regular workday and potentially increasing productivity during meetings.
• Phone work (from cold calling to conference calls) is difficult in an open office environment.
• An open office may help with creating a team environment for large projects. It seems to work well for strategists and creative professionals.
• High cubicles that are reconfigurable would make a reasonable substitute for private offices—especially if they could be equipped with doors.
• Open office works best when coworkers need to interact face-to-face frequently throughout the day.
• Working with too many people around is distracting. Having a few people work synergistically together in a small office is better than having a completely open room with no divisions.

There’s one point of agreement: The best configuration depends on the type of work being done.

Can You Make an Open Office Work?

Open office layouts with no private offices and no cubicles can be very challenging. In the words of one management consultant: “An open environment is just an ad hoc meeting with no agenda or deadline peppered with interruptions, phone calls and extraneous noise.” If you must make do with an open office plan, here’s what it takes to help workers stay productive.

1. Encourage respectful social interactions. Lack of privacy is a big problem. When people are in each other’s business all the time, it can be an HR nightmare. Put reasonable policies and guidelines in place along with a mechanism to enforce them fairly.
2. If much of the work being done requires intense concentration, there need to be rules about “quiet time”. Or, give employees the freedom to seek out a quieter temporary workspace such as an empty office or conference room without fear of being reprimanded for not being at their desk.
3. Educate workers about introversion. Open office layouts unfairly penalize workers who aren’t “social butterflies”, even though excessive socializing isn’t part of the job description and actually distracts from productive work. Help employees understand that some people simply need less chit-chat to feel like part of the team.

If you’re really concerned about saving space, rethink why you want everyone in the office. Work that requires isolation might be done remotely. Consider letting some employees work from home or another location.

Are you going to NeoCon 2014 in Chicago? Registration is still open, and you won’t want to miss the seminars if you’re in town. Here are a few presentations that could make a big difference for employee engagement, satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

Getting Space Right

On Monday, June 9^th, Dean Strombon and Sven Govaars from Gensler offer a talk on ‘Happiness by Design: a Capital Idea’. They’ll cover how to measure employee happiness and how to apply these insights to workplace design to improve employee wellbeing. Don’t worry; build happy!

One of the reasons so many employees feel stressed is no doubt the shrinking of the work environment. Today, many companies expect the workforce to thrive in less than 100 square feet per person. Kimberly Marks, president of the Marks Design Group, offers her perspective on how to deal with the design limitations inherent in working with small spaces. The seminar is ‘Occupant Load Explosion’ and it’s also on Monday.

Turning Down the Volume

Acoustics is a topic that’s covered on Monday and Wednesday. SHP Leading Design architect Allison McKenzie discusses ‘Acoustics: The Sound of Sustainable Design.’ She’ll teach you about the difference between Sound Transmission Class (STC) and Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC). Allison will also talk in detail about how acoustics meshes with LEED prerequisites and credits.

Why do 60% of employees say noise makes it difficult for them to perform their work? On Wednesday, Devorie Brown from Commercial Studio of Interior Design discusses the reported statistics about noise in the workplace. She will help participants learn to identify noise sources and create strategies to reduce distractions and create an optimal acoustic environment. Of course, you don’t have to go to NeoCon to get started with a noise reduction plan—we can help you at any time.

If you do attend NeoCon 2014, be sure to share your comments about your favorite seminars here.