Offices search for a sound approach to noise levels for returning staff

This story was produced by our colleagues at the BBC.

Many companies are urging staff to return to the office instead of working remotely, but for some, going back to a noisy workplace can be stressful. Hybrid working also means that days in the office often involve more social interaction than they previously did.

Lots of companies — from Amazon and Disney to the biggest bank in America, JPMorgan Chase — are now telling their workers to get back to the office.

In the United Kingdom, the head of the biggest business group said this year that bosses secretly want all their staff back at their desks. In Ireland, workers have told us how they are adapting to the shift.

“Loud noise is stressful”

Carla Chaplin is an interior designer who has had to start commuting to work again. “I work four days in the office and one day from home,” she said.

The move from her kitchen table back to a desk in the office has been hard.

“We get a lot of calls from contractors and clients and everyone’s in the one space — it’s very noisy. Whereas from home, you kind of stick in the AirPods and it’s a lot more quiet.”

Dr. Esther Sternberg is an expert in architecture and psychology at the University of Arizona. She co-led a study that monitored almost 300 workers in federal government offices and measured their response to quiet and loud workplaces.

A lot of people don’t realize the impact of noise on their physical well-being, she said. “Loud noise is stressful, it can actually harm your hearing. It can cause your blood pressure to go up.”

The noise sweet spot

Sternberg said the survey showed that while noise could be a problem, total silence isn’t the answer.

“When people were in quiet offices, their physiological well-being increased for every 10 decibels up until 50 decibels of sound. Forty-five decibels is birdsong, normal conversation is around 50 to 60 decibels.”

A moderate level of background noise is good for workers’ well-being, but Sternberg said it needs to be at a consistent level for people to stay focused on their work.

“You look at people working in coffee shops. They’re perfectly fine. They’re working, they’re concentrating,” she said. “Unless somebody drops a coffee cup and it crashes on the floor. It breaks through that background of white noise.”

Roy Thomas works in international transport in Dublin. He said he needs some noise to help him concentrate. “I definitely don’t want multiple people around me shouting down the phone. But I think not silence because that would give me a certain level of stress.”

Redesigns with the ears in mind

Now, some companies are realizing that they need to help staff by redesigning offices to control the acoustics. One of those is investment company PGIM Ireland in County Donegal in the northwest of the country.

At the construction site for the company’s new office, director of facilities Shane Grant said that a large, open-plan office is no longer suitable for the needs of his workers. The company is building quieter spaces for individual work and noisier ones for people to do work in groups.

“They’ll work in the focused area, then they’ll work in collaboration, then they’ll work one to one or with a very small team,” he explained. “No one here will be assigned a desk. They will move around as their work demands it.”

But remote work has its downsides too. “Where we have lost out is possibly innovation and the culture of collaboration in the company. The workplace must foster that element because there is a gap,” he said.

A boost to health and well-being

The retail group McElhinneys also redesigned its offices when the pandemic subsided to reduce noise levels for staff who had spent a long time working from home.

Shane Lafferty came up with the layout. People weren’t just concerned about noise levels. “They also wanted plenty of light into the office,” he said.

“Some people were too cold, some people were too warm, so having that heat recovery system that we use now gives a nice balance,” he added.

Lafferty said that if other employers find that balance of noise, light and heat, it would boost the health and well-being of their workers.