If you’re trying to streamline your office, or perhaps move towards an agile working method, you’ll probably be looking at ways to cut down on noise and distractions.
It’s a difficult mission. Open plan offices are quite noisy and distracting places to work from time to time and it’s to be expected that occasionally there will be disruptions to work. However, when this happens too often, not only does it cause an increase in mistakes and low productivity, but it can also add to stress and potentially cause conflicts.
For that reason, looking for a few solutions is vital.
One option you could consider is the use of acoustic panels.
Now, these aren’t the cheapest option, but they are one of the most effective. If you’re serious about cutting down on noise and distractions, these panels could be a great and cost -effective choice.
Check out this video which talks about acoustic panels in a bit more detail.
These panels are a great choice if you’re thinking about going down the agile route. In this type of office layout and method of working, you will have zones for specific types of work. So, you’ll have a quiet zone for concentrated work, and you’ll have collaborative areas for brainstorming and discussions, etc. There are more zones than that, but these are the main two.
However, even if you place your collaborative zone across the other side of the office to your quiet zone, there is always going to be someone who is distracted by the noise that comes from brainstorming and discussing. We all know that sometimes collaboration can become loud and heated, and that’s not going to go down so well with the rest of the office. However, at the same time, loud collaborative session can sometimes yield the best results.
By placing acoustic panels cleverly around the office, you could help to soak up some of the noise and therefore stop your other employees being quite so distracted by what is going on over in the collaborative area.
Even if you’re not thinking about going agile, acoustic panels can soak up some of the excess noise in the office and make it a calmer and more serene place to work. That’s not normally a description we give to open plan offices, but it’s entirely achievable if you think outside of the box!