The reason behind the ever increasing noise levels in our workplace is simple, a growing population and new trends. For the past few years, interior designer have been promoting glass/marble/concrete, one as it’s easier to clean but they are seen as sleek finishes. However, although they have the “sleek style”, all of these finishes reflect sound, creating echoes.

Furthermore, open plan offices have been on the increase. Now accounting for over 70% of modern offices, these trends have all had a negative impact on everyone working within them. With some types of noises, the human ear can tune out over time. However intermittent speech is much harder / near impossible to tune out. Intermittent speech is when you hear only a few words or sentences here and there, with pauses in between.

In fact, intermittent speech is typically most common in working environments, due to the large volume of people sitting around you, either when they’re on the phone, or speaking to another colleague.

Solution? Well, in 9/10 cases, these issues are only seen upon post project completion. That being said, the best solution be either a Sound Absorption system or a Sound Diffusion system, now of course, if you were to use both types. This will provide you with a greater improvement in noise quality.