How difficult was it to return to your offices after remote work from home during the pandemic?
After years of remote work, post-pandemic employees are struggling with office distractions. The solutions run from in-office phone booths to libraries to, surprisingly, adding more sound.
Personally, I have become more sensitive even to insignificant noises.
“I don’t know if it’s just because we’ve all become a bit more psychopathic, or maybe it’s always been in us, but I pick up on everything now,” says West, 33. “If someone has the audacity to take a phone call in a smallish office where people are trying to work, it grinds my ears.”
I feel his pain.
In a Sept. 2023 survey by workplace research firm Leesman, noise levels were rated among the 10 most important features of the office—ranking between functioning toilets and an IT help desk. Yet only about 32% of employees are satisfied with noise levels in an average office, another Leesman survey (released this past April) found, and only two issues had lower satisfaction numbers in those offices: Access to nearby “leisure facilities,” and the rate of people walking past workstations.
The response to all these complaints presents a business opportunity, with vendors successfully selling everything from phone booth-style pods to “soundscaping” services that use a “biophilic” approach to help muffle voices with sounds found in nature. Furniture makers and interior designers are adding more acoustic-friendly materials and designing “libraries” for quiet places to work. Some employers are doling out noise-canceling headphones and even building tools to help workers alert colleagues when they need to focus.
So, where you see a problem, big companies see an opportunity to do business.