What kind of noise in the office is the most bothersome?

Office work is considered light work due to low physical exertion. This does not mean that mental work does not involve any burdensome factors affecting the feeling of fatigue and productivity. Statistically, most often employees point to noise as one of the nuisance factors in the work environment.

Although many studies have been conducted to assess the adverse effects of noise on humans, they mainly concerned noise at a fairly high level. Results covering the human impact of moderate noise levels diverge due to significant differences in individual noise sensitivity.

As part of the research conducted at CIOP-PIB, the impact of acoustic conditions in the office work environment on the workload felt by employees was analyzed. In laboratory studies, the following variants of acoustic conditions were simulated:

  • W1 – without the presentation of acoustic stimuli,
  • W2 – with acoustic stimuli – sounds from office equipment,
  • W3 – with acoustic stimuli – sounds coming from office equipment go with a quiet conversation in Polish in the background (speech transmission index2 STI < 0.3),
  • W4 – with acoustic stimuli – sounds from office equipment with a loud conversation in Polish nearby (SPEECH transmission index STI > 0.45),
  • W5 – with acoustic stimuli – filtered pink noise.

The speech transmission index (STI) is a parameter that objectively determines speech intelligibility. It ranges from 0 to 1.

In each case, the study participants wore headphones in which sound stimuli were presented. The task of the participants was to read the text of a fictional biography, and then – to answer questions about reading. The study was conducted on a group of 39 people – 18 women and 21 men – whose average age was 24 years.

The best performance was declared by the study participants in the case of working in conditions of audible sounds of office equipment and quiet conversations of colleagues, and the lowest – in the case of working with loud conversations and in silence. In conditions where productivity was lowest, i.e. when working with the hum of office equipment and loud conversations, and when working in silence, employees felt the highest time pressure, while they felt it least when they thought they were most productive, i.e. when working with the sounds of office equipment and quiet conversations of co-workers. Both the sounds of office equipment with accompanying loud conversations and silence caused employees to feel the greatest mental load, and they felt best when working in noise and when only sounds from office equipment reached them The highest levels of frustration and effort associated with work were observed when participants performed tasks with the sounds of office equipment and loud conversations,  which means that working in such acoustic conditions is the most burdensome (and is also associated with the lowest efficiency).

Source ciop and PIB materials

Source: https://www.seka.pl/halas-w-biurze/

Region Gdański NSZZ „Solidarność”

Projekt otrzymał dofinansowanie z Norwegii poprzez Fundusze Norweskie 2014-2021, w ramach programu „Dialog społeczny – godna praca”.

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