Office Furniture Blog

In today's modern, open-plan office environment noise can be one of the biggest problems, leading to frustration and lack of efficiency on the part of the employees. This is particularly true in offices - for example call centres - where people spend a lot of time on the phone. The biggest cause of excessive noise in offices results from noise reflections from hard surfaces. There are many hard surfaces in office environments which can cause problems, particularly hard floors and ceilings, glass windows and walls and desktop surfaces. There is a lot that can be done at the space planning stage of your office, for example specifying soft flooring like carpets or carpet tiles, but there is not much that can be done about wall and ceilings. Desk mounted screens are often specified in office furniture plans to provide privacy and try to reduce noise, but these may not be effective, particularly in they have a hard surface. Fabric screens can help, but there is now a sound absorbing acoustic screen called Lamafon which can reduce reflected noise by as much as 75%. These materials can be much more expensive that normal screen materials, but the investment in improved staff efficiency can be worth it. In addition to the desktop screens, there are Lamafon sound absorbing panels which can be attached to solid walls and made to look like part of the office decoration. Strategically placed, these panels can make a significant difference to the office environment. As discussed, these specialist acoustic panels are much more expensive than the standard panels and it is advisable to retain the services of a qualified acoustic engineer to give advice on the quantity and placement of the individual panels. In terms of staff efficiency and effectiveness, this can give a significant return on investment. It is always better to plan for this at the beginning, so when you are specifying your call centre furniture please be sure to ask your office furniture dealer to incorporate noise reduction in the plans. Another way to reduce noise in a busy office environment is to install a special sound absorbing ceiling. These acoustic panels will absorb much of the sound which would otherwise bounce back to other office workers. As with all things, careful planning in advance will increase the benefits and reduce overall costs - adding noise reduction facilities after the office is equipped is an expensive and disruptive process.