Irrelevant and distracting noise at work is stopping many workers from being fully creative. Ensuring ‘acoustic privacy‘ is a challenge for many work places. And as the trend toward open-plan offices continues, experts are starting to identify the problems that that conversational distractions can cause.

A worker’s privacy, and therefore comfort level, decreases as the noise around him increases. Overheard conversation between colleagues can be most distracting. Worker’s put more energy into drowning out distractions than they put into the job they are attempting to do.

Various factors have contributed to increased volume. Some of these factors are an increase in workers, open-plan offices, and office dividing walls. All of this has risen due to expense-cutting, but workplace elements such as privacy suffer due to these practices. However, because the option of leaving out partitions is far less expensive and there is a call for more employees to share smaller spaces, these advances continue.

However, the minimalist style that is so popular at present has made the situation more difficult. Since this style favors hard surfaces like exposed brick, marble, and glass, sound is reflected rather than absorbed. In most offices, interior aesthetics are given more consideration than acoustics.

Servers as well as other workplace apparatus can be set up with acoustic hoods but the primary concern is over disruption caused by conversation. Some noise is predictable and efforts to absorb block and cover noise are the best course of action at the office. Of these three, covering works best.

Covering - known as “Sound Masking” or “White Noise” provides the biggest privacy boost and costs the least. While you’ll probably need to add sound-absorbent wall or ceiling panels, or raise your cubicle walls, sound masking is the logical place to start, and often provides enough privacy on its own to do the job.

With more open-plan office now than ever before experts are finding that conversational distractions can also cause work place problems. When the decibels go up, the employees’ sense of privacy decreases and they become more and more uncomfortable. The increase in volume has coincided with the elimination of dividing walls in offices and the rise of the open-plan office, as well as increasing numbers of workers per square foot. While you’ll probably need to add sound-absorbent wall or ceiling panels, or raise your cubicle walls, sound masking is the logical place to start to reduce noise and comply with government regulations such as HIPAA.

- Frank Barnett