Back in college, did you ever find yourself trying to study with a party going on a few doors down? If you did, then you know how hard it is to work in a noisy, distracting environment. Now bring that problem to an office setting. Office noise, it has been found, affects the productivity of employees. In a study by the Data Entry Management Association, poor office acoustics increased the errors made in data entries by as much as 27%. And noise levels in offices have increased over the past years. Cost-cutting leads to workstations being closer placed together than ever, so that there are more people making noise in a smaller area, and telecommunications has become vital to doing business, resulting in the distracting sounds of phones and fax machines. All this has triggered dramatic improvements in sound masking. Now, this practice isn’t new. The ancient Romans used indoor fountains in homes to mask the noise outside. You’re probably familiar with this phenomenon yourself: have you tried to have a conversation with someone in another room while you’re in the bathroom with the water running? That, in a nutshell, is how sound masking works. All sounds – like the human voice – travel at certain frequencies. Our voices are on high frequencies, which the human ear is especially attuned to. By introducing another sound, one at a certain lower frequency, the human ear then registers the voice as softer, and thus, less intrusive. Specialists use this principle to apply masking to your office. With a series of speakers usually mounted in the ceiling tiles themselves, a barely-noticeable sound is generated throughout the workplace. This sound is soft and non-distracting, and it will mask much of the noise in a busy work environment. A sound masking expert, when trying to apply a system to any office, has to take several things into account. One is the size and shape of the room that requires masking. The height of the ceiling, or the shape of the walls, for example, can have significant effects on how noise is carried throughout the office. Another factor is the usual noise level. Certain offices may require activity that is noisier: in a phone-intensive office, for example, most employees may be having telephone conversations all at once. So try and consult a specialist. There are several companies out there that offer sound masking services. They can help you design your office in such a way as to ensure optimum acoustics, which will lead to greater productivity. They can also set up active masking systems for you, and make sure that your environment can help you work harder and focus better.

The regular office has gotten noisier. Sound masking is used in offices today to reduce noise levels in the workplace. By introducing a low-frequency, non-intrusive sound to the environment, distracting noise like phone calls and loud voices are reduced. In this way, masking helps to increase productivity in the office by helping workers focus better and be more productive.

- Frank Barnett

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