12 September 2008: The concept of the 'office environment' continues to evolve along with working practices and technology. Acoustic comfort is now recognised as having a huge impact on employee productivity, and can improve personal well being. Research shows that 70% of office workers said they could be more productive in a less noisy office environment, for example.
This important topic will be explored at the Sedus Showroom in St John Street, London EC1 during the Designers Saturday event, in conjunction with Acoustic Comfort Limited. It is also a core focus of Sedus' Place 2.5 initiative.
Sedus' Place 2.5 considers the impact of acoustics, ergonomics, lighting, colour, plants, air and aroma have in creating a stimulating environment. Adopting an integrated office-furnishing concept, Sedus' Place 2.5 creates spaces where people enjoy spending time. The office becomes a stimulating environment for the senses.
Businesses invest a lot of time and money to create the right environment for their employees' comfort. But while state of the art lighting, climate controls for heat and humidity and ergonimically designed furniture are seen as important, sound and acoustic issues are often ignored.
As the key element of the office, employees are also the most costly element: 80% of total office costs are accounted for by personnel costs, whilst furnishing constitutes merely 1%!
No two organisations are the same - space, employees and tasks place individual demands on the respective work situations, understanding this is the most important step. An integrated workplace also updates itself to meet the needs of the people currently working there. Planning is key in creating the right solution to help increase efficiency and encourage creativity in the office environment.
Open plan offices, speaker phones and more concentrated workstations all contribute to making noise one of the key problems. Research suggests that office workers can lose up to two hours each day through broken concentration. Overheard conversations lead to confidentiality breaches in sensitive areas.
Privacy issues and the prevalence of distractions have to be addressed in today's open plan and cellular office spaces, where space is at a premium. For Designers Saturday, the RIBA-accredited CPD presentation 'Acoustic Comfort in Noisy Offices' will be run during Friday and Saturday at the Sedus showroom.
It will cover:
The importance of acoustic comfort in business
Room acoustics and its effects on staff efficiency
The ABC of acoustics
Solutions to controlling sound projection in the office
Thinking and planning ahead for noise control.
ENDS
Notes to editors
For futher press infomation or to discuss feature ideas based on this important topic, please contact Kim Mason at the Think Tank on 020 7336 6623 or email kimm@thinktank.org.uk
From the reception area to individual, open-plan and directors' offices, Sedus offers furniture solutions for the entire organisation, guided by the rules of modern workstation design and tailored to meet the customer's needs. Sedus has set new standards again and again in ergonomics, manufacturing processes and environmental considerations during history that goes back over 130 years.
www.sedus.co.uk