Is that how you would describe your business?

Distracted workers are not engaged workers.

The economy has cost many workers their jobs and most businesses a big chunk of their profits.  It’s no one’s fault really, just a part of doing business.  However, very few businesses have the resources to just coast and wait for everything to get better.  As managers have taken a deeper, more penetrating look at their budgets and productivity, they have discovered a shocking truth- the average worker loses a quarter of his work day to distractions.  That same worker is interrupted more than 70 times a day, and some studies show that once distracted, it takes half an hour to get on track again. That lack of focus and attention to detail is a handicap few companies can afford.  A simple solution is to get rid of the distraction- it’s easier than you think.

Sound Masking & How it Works

Rather than re-design your entire office, you can install a simple, but effective sound masking system. Similar to the concept of “white noise,” sound masking systems employ compact speakers in areas where speech is heard to add low level background sound to an environment. This low level noise fills in the spectrum of sound around building occupants to create an almost undeterminable low background signal, thus drowning out undesired speech or distracting sounds. Contrary to what you may think, sound masking systems use as low a level of sound as is necessary for covering, and ultimately are not any louder than the gentle “whoosing” sounds typical of an air conditioning system.  Through sound masking, the typical open office noises are covered so that employees can maintain steady work and avoid the pitfalls of distractions.  What could your company do with a quarter more productivity?

What are other people hearing?

In that specific situation, I was hit with the stark reality that medical (and what I always assumed was private) information obtained on the phone or in the office is not at all private.  When I pour my postnatal hormonal feelings out in my doctor’s office, I want the comfort on knowing she was the only one who heard me.  I don’t want to look over my shoulder, wondering if anyone in the waiting room or adjacent office heard me.

HIPAA is in place to safeguard such information, but it doesn’t force doctors to implement any acoustic treatments like sound masking to further guard our medical records.  However, I love my doctor and would like to keep seeing her.  I just wish she would value me as much as I value her.

Who knew this simple machine could be such a challenge?

I have recently noticed an interesting trend in my family  Actually, I am not sure “trend” is really the right word.  It’s more a difference in personality types.

• For example, we moved to the UK last year.  I noticed that our vacuum was not really that helpful.  It liked to grab the pieces of dirt and hair and just move them around to a new spot on the carpet.  Since I had heard several American friends comment on theirs doing the same thing, I just assumed, “Oh, I guess UK vacuums just aren’t as efficient as what I’m used to.”
• Similar thing happened with our washing machine.  Having never operated a UK washer before, I just assumed that all of them took the entire day (and most of the night) to run a cycle.
• I also assumed that the washers just weren’t very good at dispensing the fabric softener (a must-have when you are sans dryer) since I kept seeing blue spots on various lighter garments.

I could go on…but long story short, my husband ran the vacuum and the washer just once and immediately deduced that there was a problem.  It truly never occurred to me to say anything or wonder if there was a problem- suck it up, right?  With a few tweaks and creative ideas, the vacuum actually picked up dirt (I couldn’t believe it!), the washer was replaced due to obvious malfunction, and I was shown exactly which of the three sections fabric softener was meant to go in (the one with a flower, by the way).

My point is this- sometimes we’re so used to a problem that it doesn’t even register as a problem anymore.  We assume we have to live with it the way it is, and there’s nothing we can do except try to have a good attitude about it.  As you think about your business, it may seem as if office noise, especially conversational distraction, is just a part of working in an office.  You may or may not be aware that the average office worker is distracted more than 2 hours very day and that an estimated $600 billion was lost in 2008 to distractions such as these.  It may never occur to you that while office noise is the norm, it is also a problem that can be easily resolved through acoustic treatments.  In fact, there are a few things you need to know about treating office noise.  Commonly referred to as the ABCs of sound masking, you have three options for how you treat intruding sound:

• absorb- through carpet and panels
• block- with walls
• cover- sound masking

Many managers are hesitant to change the aesthetic of the work place or add what could be an allergen, which would be inevitable with absorption techniques.  Similarly, the addition of walls certainly changes the look of an open office (by closing it), as well as drastically reduces collaborative work and the number of workers in a specific area.   That leaves us with covering distractions, or what is known as sound masking.  Sound masking is the corporate super-version of white noise.  Simply put, sound masking provides low-level background noise that drowns competing, intrusive noises.  The most effective sound masking system  is installed directly in the ceiling, providing the most direct, uniform, and precise coverage possible.  While there is an initial investment (the same would be true of absorption and blocking techniques), sound masking is a one-time (meaning no maintenance) solution that enables your employees to tune out the hustle and bustle so typical in an open office, while still maintaining the feel of an open office.

Don’t be like me- when you see a problem, identify it, fix it, and enjoy the benefits- in this case, the benefits would be happier, less stressed, and more productive workers.

On a scale from 1-10, how engaged do you think your workers are?

“I get so easily distracted at work that I lose focus and can’t concentrate. I actually welcome the distractions because I would rather play than work! It’s a good thing that I am unemployed. I have no work to be distracted from!”  (taken from a real blog!)

While most people won’t celebrate unemployment in this economy, most probably would agree that distraction at work is not only common, it’s your worst enemy.  Businesses like yours lost an estimated $700 billion in 2008 as a result of distractions, conversational distractions the biggest contributor.

Sadly, distractions are part and parcel to working collaboratively in a multiple-office work space and certainly among the cubicle farm.  However, distractions don’t have to be as devastating as hundreds of billions of dollars a year.  In fact, as a manager you can simply forbid your employees to speak or disconnect any phone that rings.  Just kidding.  Just like distraction, noise is also a part of every office- it simply needs to be managed.  Many businesses opt to install office-wide sound masking systems to help cover intrusive distractions.

Instead of forcing your employees to cope on their own (such as googling “distracted at work” or using headphones to drone out interruptions, both of which ironically further distract said worker ), take this serious problem into your own hands.  In this economy, every dollar counts- there really isn’t time to play table hockey.

Can you really blame a worker for being unproductive here?

Cubicles

This set-up does not exactly inspire one to work.  Talk, yes.  Eavesdrop, sure.  Trip people as they walk by, absolutely.  Work, no.  While efficient in terms of a corporate budget, cubicles are horribly inefficient in terms of worker productivity.  For instance, the average worker is distracted more than two hours every day.  When your work day conists of 8 hours, losing one-fourth of that time seems ridiculous.

Get rid of the cubicles?

You don’t have to tear out the cubicles or remodel to fix the sound leaks inherent to this type of office.  In fact, many workers have been creative on their own- they wear headphones to work or try out free white noise generators or purchase their own white noise machines.  The problem with headphones is that an employee’s favorite music is rarely conducive to work either, and individual sound masking units only help that one worker (and not the hundreds who are still untreated and therefore still working only six hours a day).  Many businesses have opted to treat the entire office with sound masking that is mounted directly in the ceiling itself.  This type of technology (direct field) delivers consistent, uniform sound that covers the intrusive noises so common in the typical cubicle-ridden office.

As a manager, it’s your job to get your employees to work.  Times are tough, money is tight.  But a simple investment in sound masking could help you reclaim your company’s portion of the $700billion lost to distractions in 2008.  Don’t you think it’s worth it?

Is this focus?

It’s play-off season, and one can’t help but admire players’ focus…focus as they throw, run, receive, block, sack, intercept.  Focus as they give everything they have for 6 points…focus as they sit on the sidelines and wait to start again.

Are you focused?  Is your work force focused?  Probably not as much as you’d like.  In fact, the average worker is distracted more than 2  hours a day. Think about that- every worker you have multiplied by 2, and that’s how many potentially productive hours your office loses a day.

It’s a new year and a good time to restructure, reorganize, and rethink problem areas before too much time gets wasted.  It’s easy to blame your employees for their lack of focus, but regardless of the role they play, you can minimize the level of distraction and maximize productivity by implementing sound masking.  Better than simply trying to block noise by changing the aesthetics of the office through the addition of walls, for example, sound masking is an invisible covering solution tucked away in the ceiling.  (For more information on the ABCs of acoustic treatments, go here.)  The end result is that sound masking enables workers to be more focused, or actually engaged in their work, rather than distracted by anything and everything they hear.

Just like it only takes one moment of distraction to change the result of the game, it only takes one distracted worker to bring down the whole office.  Make a power play and reclaim that lost energy.

January 1st is the beginning of many self-improvement schemes.

It’s a new year…a time that lends itself to new resolutions.  Here are 2010’s top ten resolutions (in no particular order):

• 1. Stop smoking
• 2. Get Fit
• 3. Lose Weight
• 4. Enjoy Life More
• 5. Quit Drinking
• 6. Get Organized
• 7. Learn Something New
• 8. Get Out of Debt
• 9. Spend more time with Family
• 10. Help Others

Interestingly, most new year’s resolutions aim in the self-improvement direction.  Who thinks to himself, “I’d like to be less productive and weigh more this year.  And, less time with friends and family would be great.”  I’m wagering no one.  I’d also bet that the average man or woman resolves very little about work productivity.  However, if said average person wants to get more out of life, get organized, and spend more time with family, it helps to have a game plan.  In fact, this site suggests:

Success is not an accident, it begins with a well-conceived plan. You can and will achieve more in the next year than you have in the past ten with a disciplined plan of action. By investing your efforts into a New Years Resolution, you give yourself a launch pad for starting your new year and your new life.

Resolutions at work

If you’d like to help others at work (#10), one idea is to enable them to work more productively and efficiently.  Distractions, namely conversational ones, are the number one production eaters.  One way to deal with them is to hunt down the chatty cathys and destroy them.  Or you might consider sound masking, akin to white noise in that it is the addition of low-level background sound that covers, or masks, intrusive, distracting noises.  The end result is more engaged workers…which leads to more productive and less stressed workers.  Win-win (or win-win-win as the great office manager Michael Scott would say) for everyone.

A Cornell study found the following to be true (emphasis mine):

The environmental psychologists found that the workers in the noisy office experienced significantly higher levels of stress (as measured by urinary epinephrine), made 40 percent fewer attempts to solve an unsolvable puzzle and made only half as many ergonomic adjustments to their workstations as did their colleagues in quiet offices. Typing performance, however, was not affected.

With a cut-throat economy and the need for creative solutions, now is not the time to increase stress, while simultaneously decreasing the ability to problem-solve and make needed adjustments to one’s workspace.  If you need your employees just to type, then you don’t need to worry about acoustic treatments, so that’s good news.  Otherwise, you might want to consider making acoustic adjustments so your employees can make the adjustments necessary to get their work done.  Interestingly, the same study reported (emphasis mine):

“In terms of practice, our findings are potentially important, because if worker motivation is lower under open-office noise because of its uncontrollability, various design options could be adopted. For example, when concentration is required, workers might use a quiet, enclosed room or sound-making devices that they would control. These kinds of measures might help alleviate the harmful effects of open-office noise on workers.”

There are a variety of sound masking units and systems currently available on the market.  Some can be installed office-wide and others can be installed for individual use and adjustment.  Either way, sound masking is a relatively simple and cost effective measure to take for you and your employees to get the most out of each work day.

Did you know that some workers have to actually leave work to be productive?  They find that leaving all the office distractions behind and working from home or even at Starbuck’s.  Phenomenal- having to escape work to actually work.  Now why is that?  Well, the average worker in an open-style office:

• Is distracted more than 2 hours a day
• Gets interrupted more than 70 times per day
• Struggles to stay focused more than 30 minutes at a time
• Suffers from stress and fatigue
• Experience high levels of stress
• Made 40 percent fewer attempts to solve difficult problems
• Make only half as many ergonomic adjustments to their workstations as did their colleagues in quiet offices, resulting in an increase in repetitive strain injuries (such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) and workers’ comp claims.

Go figure they’d have to leave the cramped, not to mention distracting, quarters of the cubicle farm to be productive.

So what can you do about it?

Your job as a manager is to minimize distractions so your employees can maximize their work.  You have several options: the quiet game, addition of walls and sound-absorbing paneling, or covering sound with sound masking.  I think we can agree that the quiet game is out, though always a fun choice.  Adding walls and paneling is expensive, doesn’t always line up with design aesthetics, and also contributes to VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) and/or the collection of dust mites or allergens.  That leaves us with sound masking- an invisible noise solution (like white noise) tucked away in the ceiling.  Most sound masking systems are easy to install and very low-maintenance.

In times like these, every hour counts.  Survey your options and help your employees return to work.

"Efficient" is defined as working without waste or using a minimum of time, effort and expense. But, the definition is silent about the goals of the operation. A person can be very efficient at what they are doing but still not get to where they want to be because they aren’t doing the right things. That’s where "effective" comes in. "Effective" means "having the desired result". Once the desired overall result is defined, the tasks leading to the result can be isolated and these tasks can then be completed efficiently….

So, while your business’s specific goals will determine how to be effective, being efficient is a little more universal.  In fact, the average worker wastes 2 or more hours  a day because he is distracted by conversations, ringing and/or buzzing phones, and who knows what else…A loss of 2 hours per employee is not exactly efficient.  One option might be sound masking.  Most people can’t work in ceaseless clamor, but at the same time, they can’t be productive in silence either.  Sound masking is like white noise in that it provides a low-level "hum" that can help workers to tune out irritating distractions that keep them from being productive. Many companies and small businesses have found that plugging the leak of conversational distractions is more than worth the initial investment.