The reasons for a noisy and distracting office can be broken down into three categories.
Internal Noise Pollution:
Open-plan offices can be incredibly noisy due to employee chatter, telephone calls, printer or fax machine sounds, air conditioning and other factors.
Lots of Hard Surfaces:
If your office has a hard floor, plain walls and shiny ceilings, the opportunities for sound reflection are huge.
High Ceilings:
Higher ceilings increase the volume in an office, meaning sound is lost in the ‘dead space’ above our heads. They also lead to higher reverberations as sound waves have to travel a long way before they are reflected by a hard surface.
If your employees find they are often distracted by echoing or office noise, then introducing a series of acoustic screens may aid productivity.