Reduce Noise Distractions.
Protect Speech Privacy.
Increase Workplace Productivity.
What is Sound Masking?
Sound Masking is a specifically tuned ambient background sound that targets the same frequency as human speech, reducing its intelligibility
By adding sound masking to a workplace, conversations are notably less intelligible or noticeable, and thus less distracting. The workplace becomes more comfortable, private, and productive.
Acoustic Design.
When designing an optimal acoustic environment, architects consider a variety of elements to address noise control and speech privacy. Elements added either Absorb, Block, or Cover sound, and are collectively called the ABC’s of acoustic design.
All of the ABC’s of acoustic design can be used together or individually to achieve the desired acoustic environment, but absorbing and blocking materials are costly and underused. Sound masking, on the other hand, is a low-cost option for creating acoustical environments that both reduce noise distractions and increase speech privacy.
Why Do You Need Sound Masking?
Open Floor Plans are the New Normal
Most workplaces today feature more open spaces and smaller, and often shared, workstations. Fewer sound blocking and absorptive materials are being used such as lower or non-existent partitions, hard or glass surfaces, and thinner walls and doors. This creates acoustical challenges that negatively impact workplace satisfaction, productivity, and speech privacy.
Sound Masking Increases Worker Satisfaction
Approximately 24,000 office workers in private offices, shared offices, cubicles, and open offices were asked to rate their satisfaction with their noise and speech privacy levels. Those with private offices were the only ones satisfied with their speech privacy, and even they only rated them a .55 out of 2 on average.
Speech Privacy is the #1 Concern of Employees
What’s speech privacy? Simply put, it’s the inability of an unintended listener to understand outside conversations. So someone with a lack of speech privacy is overhearing lots of conversations they shouldn’t be and is also concerned that their conversation is being overheard by others.
How Satisfied Are You With Your Office’s Acoustics?
Source: US General Services Administration Study
Drivers of Office Worker Dissatisfaction
The chart below says it all. The Center for the Built Environment in Berkeley, California, surveyed more than 25,000 workers in more than 2,000 buildings to determine what the key environmental issues were for workers. Of all of the factors workers encountered in their environment, speech privacy was far and away the factor they were the most dissatisfied with.
Source: Analysis of data from the Center for the Built Environment by Jungsoo Kim and Richard de Dear, University of Sydney
Distractions Make Your Employees Less Productive
Employees are interrupted once every 11 minutes according to research from UC Irvine, and it takes them up to 23 minutes to get back into the flow of what they were doing before they were interrupted.
Sound Masking Helps Your Employees Concentrate and Work More Efficiently
Researchers examined the effect of speech privacy on task performance in an open office environment without sound masking and with sound masking. Participants in offices with sound masking had better short-term memory recall than those without it.
These Distractions Cost You Money
In a recent study presented to the International Congress of Noise as a Public Health Problem, researchers found that, on average, employees wasted 21.5 minutes per day due to conversational distractions, making lack of speech privacy the number one cause of reduced productivity. An additional 2014 Steelcase/Ipsos study found that employees lost as much as 86 minutes per day due to noise distractions.
Even using conservative estimates, this loss of productivity adds up to big monetary losses for companies. 21.5 minutes daily is roughly 4% of an average employee’s work day (based on an 8 hour day). Some quick math shows that a company with 100 employees and an average employee salary cost of $50,000 is losing $200,000 a year in lost productivity.
Sound Masking Protects Confidentiality and Reduces Liability
Closing the door to an office no longer guarantees speech privacy, in fact, it’s probably worse because closing that door provides the illusion of privacy.
Many private conversations could be HR nightmares if overheard by the wrong people.
Providing speech privacy is often encouraged, or outright mandated, by the legal and regulatory environment:
HIPAA – Mandates that all employers (not just hospitals) “take reasonable safeguards to protect the privacy of protected health information.”
GLBA – In many ways, the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA) is the HIPAA equivalent for the finance industry. GLBA requires financial institutions to protect their client’s non-public financial information.
FERPA – In the education industry, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) mandates that colleges and universities take all reasonable efforts to safeguard student information including how the information is collected and disseminated.
LEED – Ensuring proper speech privacy and sound isolation is a component of LEED certification. LEED is a set of rating systems for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of green buildings, homes and neighborhoods. Many U.S. federal agencies and state and local governments require buildings to attain
LEED certification.
HCAHPS – In the healthcare industry, the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey (HCAHPS) provides scores to hospitals based on a variety of criteria, including “quietness of patient environment.” Hospitals with low HCAHPS scores risk loss of government funding and damaged reputation.
Who Benefits from Sound Masking?
Business Owners
Protect speech privacy and increase productivity by reducing noise distractions.
HR Managers
Comply with the speech privacy requirements of HIPAA and GLBA regulations.
Contractors
Improve speech privacy and lessen the level of distraction without adding further absorptive and blocking materials.
Consultants
Create a collaborative work environment without sacrificing acoustics.
Healthcare Administrators
Increase HCAHPS scores and HIPAA compliance.
Facility Managers
Help increase worker satisfaction and reduce operating costs.
Employees
A more comfortable work environment with fewer distractions.
Architects
Improve the acoustical environment of new or retrofitted spaces.
Property Managers
Increase the value of your space.
Where Should Sound Masking Be Used?
Corporate
Open Office
Private Office
Outside of Conference Rooms
Healthcare
Hospitals and Clinics
Offices and Counseling Areas
Pharmacies
Education
Libraries
Classrooms
Testing Centers
Hospitality
Hotel Rooms
Reception Areas
Spas
Technology
Engineering and Research Labs
Co-Share Spaces
Huddle Rooms
Financial Services
Retails Banks
Call Centers
Board Rooms
Government
Secured Facilities
Courtrooms
Law Offices
Venues
Airport Lounges
House of Worship Offices
Conference Centers
How Does Sound Masking Work?
Adding sound to a space actually makes the space seem quieter. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it's true. This is because the added sound reduces the intelligibility of speech. When you can't understand what someone is saying, their words are less distracting — in fact, you probably don't even notice them.
Here's an example of sound masking in everyday life. Have you ever had a conversation with someone while you are washing dishes and they are on the other side of the kitchen? When the water isn’t running, you can hear the other person’s words perfectly. When you turn the water on it becomes much harder to hear them and understand what they are saying. The person isn’t speaking more softly, but they sound as if they are. This is because the noise of the running water is “masking” the sound of the person speaking to you.
Sound masking mimics this phenomenon on a much more sophisticated and effective scale. By adding ambient sound to an environment, (such as professionally engineered sounds that sound similar to water flowing or airflow) you help mask the other noises in the environment, making them less distracting. Sound masking doesn’t eliminate all noises in an environment; it simply reduces the area where human speech is intelligible and distracting. We call this area the radius of distraction.
Sound masking is barely noticeable and sounds similar to airflow, but it’s specifically tuned to the frequency and amplitude of human speech to make speech less intelligible.
The sound is introduced through speakers installed in the ceiling, creating a blanket of sound.
Sound masking typically reduces the area where speech is intelligible and distracting from upwards of 50 feet to around 15 feet.
Workers can still collaborate with their neighbors but are no longer being distracted by conversations on the other side of the office.
Once masking is added, it becomes more challenging to understand conversations from across the room, and thus makes it less likely that conversations will distract you.
