Using technology to boost productivity

India is a major market with various BPOs and ITeS centers mushrooming in the country today. At call centers, with the introduction of open plan offices, individual work areas are left with no solitude. There is constant disturbance leading to low output level. This is called hindrance in acoustical privacy.

Majority of the employees believe they could be more productive in a less distracting environment. Noise reduction reduces stress and improves employee morale. Sound masking system generates background sound frequencies that mask noise so it does not distract co-workers.

Reduce noise distraction and increase productivity: Research has shown that it is possible for one slightly louder sound, to mask another slightly softer sound, provided the frequency content of the sound is similar. Noise masking employs a careful defined spectrum of sound shaped to mask human speech. Typically, the sound is provided by special electronics and a series of loudspeakers installed in the ceiling plenum.

To be effective, the masking field must be uniform in space and time. This is primarily influenced by careful spacing and orientation of loudspeakers, transmission characteristics of the ceiling system, reflective properties of the plenum materials and the opening in the ceiling, such as return air ducts and light fixtures. It is possible to program the noise masking levels to compensate for population swings.

This helps reduce the speech intelligibility in the open office and therefore provides a relative degree of speech privacy.

Using technology to boost productivity: After some detailed studies experts have agreed that controlling of open-plan office acoustics requires control over the following three parameters: sound level, sound path and speech intelligibility.

Sound level: An open-office plan would be considered noisy even if it was much quieter than a crowded café. Therefore it is the amount of distractions caused by the noise that is important to control. However if the open plan offices use relatively more sound absorbent materials like carpets, sound absorbent partitions, sound absorbent ceiling, tiles, drapes etc., it would result in more sound energy being absorbed, which helps in keeping the noise relatively low.

Sound Paths: Sound waves generally spread out spherically from the source a workstation panel can do only so much. The point to note here is, the longer distance sound has to travel to reach the listeners ears; the lower will be its intensity! Therefore side panels, absorptive ceilings, carpets all help.

Speech Intelligibility: Even though a speech content is only half as loud as a ringing telephone or a quarter as loud as copy machine, the ‘information content’ of the conversation makes it much more distracting than a louder equipment noise in an open-plan office. Even with a sound absorbent ceiling and carpet on the floor, a conversation as far a 30ft away may cause distraction. So to ensure that people focus on their jobs in the open-plan office, one has to find ways to control all the spreading sound waves from distracting the people.

While the first two items can be controlled through modifications of the interiors a sound masking system will help in the third one.

It is obviously better to plan an open office with ‘speech privacy’ in mind. This enables all the three elements of the speech privacy to come together nicely. It may be possible for some existing office spaces to incorporate some of these elements. However it is important to note that electronic sound masking alone is not enough.

Arun Kumar, Divisional Manager,

Professional Systems Division,

Bose Corporation India Pvt. Ltd