Sound, sight and the business bottom line

Groves: 'A correctly configured sound masking system will always improve speach privacy'

Integrating acoustics and lighting at project design stage with facilities managers is key to lifecycle costing and maintenance, energy savings, welfare, productivity and, ultimately, the business bottom line. fmME speaks to the professionals…

Office acoustics is high on the agenda for facilities managers tasked with providing a space for happy, productive building occupants.

Employees need a space to work in that takes into consideration opposing acoustical factors - appropriate sound privacy coupled with employees’ need to communicate frequently between workstations, for example, which can be difficult to accommodate. These issues are most pronounced in open plan offices.

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ACOUSTICS
“Open plan offices do throw up the most challenges; that said acoustics should be integrated at the design stage, with architects and facilities managers, whatever the space,” points out Martin Grove, Acoulite Environmental Interiors.

“If lifecycle ease of maintenance, energy and cost savings are to be achieved throughout the building tenure, the FMs contribution to ensure value engineering is vital in the process.”

With the business bottom line in mind, the not unheard of cost saving practice of reducing workstation size to increase the number of workers in an office space can hurt productivity if acoustics is not carefully examined.

“Bringing employees closer together often results in decreased speech privacy which can lead to distractions when normal speaking voices are intelligible to adjacent co-workers,” notes Grove.

“Additionally, employees may be nearer to noisy office equipment, such as fax machines, copiers and printers, which multiplies the problem.”

Summertown Interiors GM Mohammed Al Kailani agrees and points out, “staff productivity is obviously hugely important if a company is to maximise its talent and therefore profit, but too often acoustics is secondary and therefore often ineffectively implemented due to the lack of consultation with designers and facilities managers”.

SOUND MASKING
A sound masking system is invaluable in an open office space, controlling background sound to provide better privacy and hide intrusive sound. No matter how acoustically well-planned a space’s floor, ceiling, furniture panels and finishes are, a correctly configured sound masking system will always improve speech privacy, says Groves.

However, one of the biggest mistakes he sees FMs make is installing and tuning a sound masking system themselves. “Facilities managers sometimes think that all that needs to be done is introduce sound into the space,” says Groves.