Workplace noise is not just an issue for heavy industry. You might associate hearing protection with factories and construction sites, but the negative effects of noisy workplaces are more widespread than that.
At dB Hearing we specialise in hearing protection for the workplace with our innovative NoiseBarrier custom earplugs.
Health and Wellbeing at Work
The world often feels like it’s getting louder and the spaces where we work are no exception.
Open plan offices mean that people have far less privacy, and find themselves exposed to constant noise from others around them.
Furthermore, these open plan spaces often have smooth, easy to clean surfaces which add to the harsh acoustics and seem to accentuate their overall noisiness.
This is not just about people feeling bad tempered or mildly irritated. Noise can have pronounced negative effects on people’s health and wellbeing and, consequently on productivity.
Amplifying Stress
People find noise stressful. It can cause physical stress in the body. Prolonged exposure to loud sounds and to some noises will trigger responses in the body such as increased blood pressure and heart rate.
To an extent, this also applies to what we might think of as more routine workplace noises, such as telephones ringing, other people’s conversations and laughter – even the sound of someone eating their lunch.
People work best when they’re bodies, and brains, get into a kind of rhythm. The noise around them can interrupt this rhythm.
Damaging Productivity
Noise in the workplace is a distraction. A British Journal of Psychology study has investigated the effects of background noise, with results showing that it can disrupt performance, affecting memory-based and mental arithmetic tasks.
Open plan offices are very much established, but the risk is that so are the damaging effects of constant background noise.
Moreover, the UK’s current lack of progress in productivity is well-documented.
With the sound of other people’s conversations being especially disruptive, is it time to look at means of protecting people’s wellbeing and trying to improve on productivity?
How to Filter Out Distracting Noise
Clearly, standard foam earplugs are not a practical solution to noise protection in a busy office environment.
If you cut out all the noise around you, you are then working in isolation, at least semi-impervious to communication, some of which might be very important.
There are also health and safety issues around being able to hear instructions or fire alarms.
In other words, there is the risk that in seeking one kind of solution for health and wellbeing you expose yourself to other problems.
Noise at work as many negative effects, from loss of concentration to increased stress, and even how we sit, making us more prone to slouch or hunch.
At the same time, simply plugging yourself into earphones and listening to music is not a guaranteed solution. It too can affect concentration, and listening to music continually at a high volume has implications for hearing damage.
The solution is to reduce overall noise levels without losing any of the essential detail.
This is how NoiseBarrier earplugs work.
Effectively, they reduce the overall volume of the sounds you hear around you without compromising on any of the detail.
Using soft silicon, and custom-fitted to the individual ear canal, NoiseBarrier earplugs are a long-lasting, long-term solution to keeping unwanted noise out.
“Too much noise is a contemporary workplace problem for many. It impacts on health, wellbeing, and on productivity. There is a way to reduce it, with custom earplugs. It’s a way of investing in people at work, because they are any business’s most valuable resource.”
Paul Thorpe, Laboratory Manager, dB Hearing
Contact Us
Is your workplace too noisy and distracting? Contact dB Hearing to discover more about personal hearing protection.
