As workers return to the office, collaboration spaces are getting a makeover. Poly understands that designing the room environment and deciding the layout for video equipment can be challenging, especially with the new considerations for supporting hybrid teams. Even though our Poly G7500 and Poly Studio Family products were designed with ease of deployment and setup in mind, there are other important considerations when prepping your video collaboration spaces, such as how to deal with windows, where to place the furniture, and where microphone placement will work best in your space. 

The new Room Preparation Guide offers pre-installation strategies and recommendations for room planning to help you optimize your collaboration environment. These helpful tips can prevent oversights that can counteract a productive and enjoyable video conferencing experience. 

Maximizing the Room Environment 

The basic elements of your collaboration environment – walls, windows, HVAC, colors, lighting, acoustics – are important to creating a workable space. Fine-tuning the room environment before installing your video conferencing equipment is crucial to your collaboration experience. 

The guidelines in the Room Prep Guide help establish a good foundation for collaboration rooms by answering questions such as the following: 

• Do window treatments really matter? Yes. Use curtains or draperies (never blinds) that are heavy enough to dampen sound from inside and outside the room. 

• How bright should the lighting be? Bright light increases the range of in-focus objects, especially people’s faces. Make sure the light is diffused and never shining directly at the camera.

• Which floor materials are acceptable? Choosing the right flooring makes a big difference in the room’s acoustics. Stick with carpet if you can or pay special attention to sound dampening in other parts of the room (like walls and ceilings). 

• What color should I paint the walls? Neutral colors with hints of blue work best. Grays, silvers, and champagne work well for acoustic panels. Avoid saturated colors if possible (and stay away from green!) 

• How can I minimize background noise? Most of the options to minimize background noise are integrated as acoustic materials built into the walls and ceilings. If you can’t alter or update the construction of your room, consider enabling Poly Acoustic Fence or Poly Acoustic Fence with Beam Shaping Technology (depending on the equipment used). 

Configuring the Room Layout 

A good room layout is the key to an enjoyable and effective collaborative experience. This is more than hanging a display and setting up a conference table with chairs. The most effective room layouts provide the right audio and visual interaction between participants, whether it’s 2 or 20. 

What do you need to consider when setting up the layout of your collaboration rooms? The Room Prep Guide goes step-by-step with information like the following: 

• Can I use a Studio X30 system in a large conference room? Studio X30 systems are designed for huddle rooms that hold only a few people. For larger conference rooms, Poly recommends a Studio X70 system or a G7500 system with a connected Studio E70 camera. 

• Is it a good idea to mount a camera under a display? You can, but cameras are best positioned near the horizontal and vertical centers of your display. Placing cameras too high or too low can cause eye contact problems or skew images of the participants.

• How far can a meeting participant be from a Studio X Family built-in microphone? The microphones integrated in the Studio X Family products can typically pick up speech between 2.5 m (8 ft) and 3.5 m (11.5 ft). When integrated with a Poly Trio system, you can use the Trio microphones to extend the distance or allow for audio pickup in other areas of the room. 

• What does camera framing look like for a Poly Studio X50 system at full HD zoom? Luckily the Room Prep Guide provides detailed images that show what speaker framing looks like. Check out the guide for some examples! 

• How do Poly Acoustic Fence and Poly Acoustic Fence with Beam Shaping Technology work? Poly’s Acoustic Fence technology uses various microphones with G7500 systems to set up a virtual area where sound is picked up. Poly’s Acoustic Fence with Beam Shaping Technology is integrated into the Studio X Family systems and uses a defined beam to limit sounds outside of the beam area. These are great options to reduce background noise if you can’t update your build environment with acoustic materials. 

We Welcome Your Feedback 

We’re excited about our new Room Preparation Guide as a resource to support our customers in planning their return to office strategies. Access this document at Poly Support and use the guidance to build out your best collaborative environment for Poly G7500 and Poly Studio Family systems.  

We developed this guide to serve our customers, so let us know what we can improve or update it. Please join us in the Poly Community or send us feedback directly to documentation.feedback@poly.com.  

With the explosive growth of the open office environment, keeping noise and chatter under control when talking on the phone is critical for sounding professional and staying focused.  According to recent future of work research*, over 50% of office workers report office noise as a significant burden to their overall satisfaction and productivity.  And it goes further than that.  With all that noise going on within your own offices, have you ever stopped to think about the listeners on the “far side” of your telephone conversations?  Put yourself in the place of who you’re talking with: have you ever called into your bank to speak with an agent, only to be distracted by the sounds of their ringing phones and chatter in the background?  If only there was a solution… 😊

One of the pioneering features developed by Poly is called the “Acoustic Fence,” a way of preventing surrounding noise and conversation from derailing your conversations.

Here’s how it works

Unlike conventional devices that use their microphones the same way regardless of conditions, Acoustic Fence continuously explores the differences in sound between multiple microphones to find who is the main talker, and then selects, combines, and mutes the remaining ones to do the most targeted job of sending just the main talker’s conversation to the far-end listener.  The resulting impact is that the listener hears the talker without interruption; any background sounds are heard just in snippets that don’t connect to make another distracting dialog.  Background sounds and talking are sliced and blanked by the cadences of your own speaking, rendering your voice clear to the far end and nearby conversations incomprehensible.

While technology is not quite at the point that it can reliably filter one active voice from another in real time, by chopping up the distraction in this way Acoustic Fence takes advantage of the human’s built-in perceptual filter: if you can’t hear a whole phrase, you can’t make sense of it and won’t be distracted by it.  Poly combines Acoustic Fence with the natural performance of low-noise directional microphones and some very clever acoustic designs to deliver the most effective performance on the market.

What’s better, Acoustic Fence is not locked into a single performance level: it uses settings that can be changed by the system manager to match it to individual environments.

Poly is shipping Acoustic Fence in a growing number of its products today, including desktop phones and video systems.

To experience Acoustic Fence for yourself, talk with your Poly representative for a demonstration.

*Data from “All Your Employees Are Distracted.” April 24, 2019. Future Workplace.

As Millennials start to dominate the workforce, they’re revolutionizing the way we think about workspaces by reimagining traditional work styles and introducing new, progressive concepts. Huddle rooms are one of the most popular trends established thus far. These small meeting rooms designed for ad hoc collaboration aptly reflect the values of modern-day corporate culture centered around flexibility, innovation, and teamwork. From what huddle rooms are to how you can create one in your office, we have all you need to know about how to bring your workspace into the digital age.

What is a Huddle Room?

A huddle room is a small meeting room equipped with audio and video capabilities that companies use for quick team meetings (aka team huddles). Aside from size, what makes these rooms different is that they are an easy alternative to large conference rooms that most often require prior reservations or bookings. If you need a last-minute space to hold an unplanned working session or a room for smaller scheduled meetings, a huddle room is your quick fix.

Benefits of Huddle Rooms

Space Utilization

Does your office have small rooms that aren’t being used for anything in particular? If the answer is ‘yes’, you should consider creating a huddle room. One of the biggest benefits of huddle rooms is that they utilize space that is normally forgotten. Even if you do use the small space, you may not be reaping its fullest potential. If you aren’t utilizing all the space your workplace offers, it’s time to give your underutilized space a full revamp and create a huddle space.

Prioritizing Large Rooms

Contrary to first impressions, when you take the time and effort to create huddle rooms in the workspace, you are in fact proactively prioritizing your larger conference rooms. Not only do you provide a space perfect for small work sessions and meetings, you also utilize your bigger rooms in a more efficient manner. Say goodbye to wasted space and empty chairs!

Inclusion of All Employees

Huddle rooms facilitate collaboration and communication amongst team members, while making the experience feel more intimate. Conference rooms are great for video conferencing with large groups, but can make remote workers feel forgotten and left out. Huddle rooms solve that problem with quick and easy face-to-face connection that helps to give everyone a life-size presence.

No Reservation Needed

As previously mentioned, huddle rooms don’t need reservations prior to their use (unless your company chooses to do otherwise). Employees love this benefit because they don’t have to stop what they’re doing to schedule meetings. Impromptu gatherings is the name of the game for these trendy rooms.

Inexpensive

You may be wondering what costs are involved with transforming your space into a huddle room. Thankfully, huddle rooms are inexpensive to create, making them accessible to both large and small businesses. The equipment that is used in huddle rooms is much less expensive than equipping a large conference room.

Tips for Creating an Ideal Huddle Room

Furniture

The first step to getting your office’s huddle room started is buying furniture. Find small seating options that make it easy to be comfortable without taking up too much space and provide a table that can easily support a few laptops. Because huddle rooms are primarily going to be used by your employees, you have the option of involving them in the decision making. This is a great way to get everyone excited about the new space. Besides style, you also need to plan for how many people you’re intending to fit into each room. Typically, one huddle room will seat four to five employees.

Ambiance

The first thing to consider with huddle room ambiance is lighting. Natural lighting has been connected to better health and increased engagement in employees, so it’s a good idea to pick a space that has windows. If your space does not allow for much natural sunlight, try opting for softer, more natural lighting in the huddle room that lessens the exposure to blue light.

Once you have lighting set up, acoustics are another important factor. Many offices now have open floor plans which can be problematic because of distracting background noise. Luckily, you can include sound insulation to prevent noise leakage in and out of the room. To bring your huddle space to the next level, consider purchasing professional-grade microphones. They increase the audio quality of a meeting with native ambient noise reduction and full room coverage.

Display

After you lay the foundation down, it’s time to equip your huddle room with technology. No one wants to huddle around a laptop, so you’re going to need bigger displays. When choosing, it’s important to buy a display with screen sharing capabilities as this will come in handy on a regular basis. As far as size, stay within the 42” to 50” range. Remember, this is a small space, so you don’t need the massive equipment you’re used to. Once you have your display ready, shoot for mounting it close to eye level.

Video & Phone

Video conferencing is a huge trend in today’s working world because it allows team members across the globe to communicate face-to-face without ever having to leave their seat. If you’re thinking about adding a huddle room to your office, you can’t miss out on this opportunity. Video conferencing providers have started to develop systems optimized for huddle rooms and small meeting rooms, making it easy for organizations to outfit their huddle rooms with all the benefits of video conferencing.

For instances when video calls aren’t necessary, you’ll also want to have a conference phone and speakers that offer crystal-clear audio so nobody is straining to listen or join in on the conversation. Be sure to look for technology that is easy to use and meets your reliability requirements.

Writing Wall

Sometimes, writing it out is the best way to visualize new ideas and collaborate with others. Brainstorming sessions are popular in huddle rooms, so providing a wall for writing is crucial. Whether it be a traditional white board or a glass wall, this feature is great for employees to visually share ideas with their teammates. Be sure to stock the huddle room with dry-erase markers and sticky notes for the ultimate setup.

The popularity of huddle rooms continues to grow throughout the workforce, and for good reason. There are plenty of valuable benefits to be enjoyed when you take the time to create huddle rooms in your office space, including office space optimization and improved collaboration amongst teams. With such an easy setup, every office should invest in a huddle space for more efficient work and happier employees!

Poly Headsets Officially Support Zoom

Over the past few months, we’ve announced several significant milestones in our partnership with Zoom, including the certification of our Poly Studio USB video bar and Eagle Eye Cube cameras for Zoom Rooms, as well as the introduction of our new Poly Studio X Family video bars running Native Zoom software at Zoomtopia 19.

But you didn’t think we were going to stop at video, did you? Of course you didn’t.  Today we’re excited to announce that a variety of Poly headsets and audio solutions – including Voyager, Blackwire, Savi and Calisto—now officially support Zoom for Zoom Meetings and Zoom Phone.  The combined Poly portfolio offers the broadest selection of Zoom certified and Zoom supported end points available, ensuring a seamless experience for users and less help tickets for IT Managers.

A Headset for Every Workstyle

According to Nemertes Workplace Collaboration 2019-20 Research Study, leading organizations are increasingly provisioning headsets by job role to best fit their worker’s environment and maximize productivity across the business.  Poly’s powerful out-of-the-box offerings cover all types of workers from mobile, office to virtual.

Mobile

Explore Zoom supported headsets that give you the freedom to roam: Voyager 8200 UC, Voyager 6200 UC, Voyager Focus UC Series, Voyager 5200 Office and UC Series.

Office

Explore Zoom supported headsets that promote focus and productivity: Voyager 4200 Office and UC Series, Savi 8200 Office and UC Series, Blackwire 5200 Series, Voyager Focus UC Series. 

Virtual

Explore Zoom supported headsets that enable great work, no matter where you are: Calisto 7200, Calisto 5200, Calisto 3200.

Seamlessly connect to Zoom with Poly

No more fumbling around with clumsy technology or losing impact because you sound like you’re at the bottom of a well. With Poly’s premium headsets, you can meet with confidence knowing that your gear is just going work. The seamless experience of moving from a Zoom call to other clients make Poly headsets the ideal choice for customers with a hybrid environment using Zoom with other video cloud services.

Remote call control (RCC) features available on Poly headsets allow users to answer incoming calls and meeting invitations, mute their line, and control volume directly from the headset.  Alleviate low-battery anxiety with mute and power level status easily visible on the taskbar (requires Plantronics Hub 3.14)

Poly Power. Zoom Simplicity.

Poly has decades of experience in understanding what makes meetings more human – for everyone in the room and those dialing in from other locations. By partnering to develop the next generation of Zoom solutions, we’re making sure every powerful idea, every human emotion and every spark of genius can be clearly seen, heard and understood whether you’re in the office, working remotely or running through the airport.

Poly Voyager 4200 and Voyager 5200 Office Series

According to Wainhouse Research*, more than half of all office workers say they use three or more devices to communicate at work. And it’s easy to see why – you might take a call on your cell phone, get another on your desk phone and even others on various softphones. To sound your best while communicating you need a headset that is interoperable across any of these devices.  Why can’t they all just play nice together?

Fortunately, Poly’s here to simplify your life. Our new Voyager 4200 and Voyager 5200 Office Series connect to multiple devices, so you can move from call to call, meeting to meeting with ease. The Voyager Office series can connect to desk phones, PCs/Macs or mobile phones through our new Office bases.

Offering different wearing styles is critical to drive headset adoption. In fact, recent industry research shows that companies who provide headsets that align with workstyles are 62% more likely to report high or increasing adoption.** The good news is that the Voyager Office Series is available in a number of configurations, with over-the-ear, hi-fi stereo and over-the-head mono wearing styles to suit different use cases and preferences

Working in modern open office floor plans, background noise can be a major distraction.  If you’re working in an environment where you need to block out the noise with both ears covered, the Voyager 4220 will keep you in the zone when you take a call. Road Warriors might prefer the freedom of a sleek mono option with the Voyager 5200, featuring four omni-directional microphones to make sure you sound great when driving or running through the airport to catch your flight.

The Voyager 4200 and Voyager 5200 Office Series also have a version with a dedicated Microsoft Teams button to instantly invoke the Teams app on your desktop. The Voyager Office Series also features Amazon Alexa Built-In and Tile integrations.

Before long, you’ll notice happier, more productive workers and all your devices will be playing nice together.

* Wainhouse Research, UC End User Survey Insight, Q4 2018

** Unified Communications and Collaboration: 2018 Research Study, Nemertes Research

“I just want to speak to someone.”

It’s a well-documented trend that the rise of digital channels such as webchat, apps, FAQs, etc., has led to a change in the way contact centers handle interactions.

The routine, “easy” interactions are now handled by self-service channels. Deflecting these low-value interactions has enabled contact centers to improve productivity and efficiency.

But if easy interactions are handled on self-service, then the calls that reach agents are becoming harder and more complex, and they’re likely to be problems not expected or encountered before. Customers also expect the resolutions or answers to be provided very quickly. If this doesn’t happen, an escalation to another channel happens swiftly.

In fact, recent research indicates that over half (55%) of these self-service instances eventually escalate to voice interactions with contact center agents.*

May I Speak with Your Manager?

Not only are the calls that reach agents more complex, they are often loaded with the emotions of an unsatisfied customer. Well, that escalated quickly!

How do we resolve this? In future posts I’ll look at a variety of ways, but the area I’ll cover today is trust and empowerment of employees.

The previous approach of scripting employees to help manage transactions won’t work now. If the customer issue can’t be handled by self-service, then the organization likely won’t have planned for it, and hence there won’t be a script for it. We now need a new generation of employees that can solve complex problems, collaborate across the organization, and show empathy to the customer – all to deliver a memorable experience

Getting Employees the Right Tools

To get the most from these employees, you’ll need to trust and empower them. Without the right conditions they’ll move on to new roles, and you will struggle to meet your organizational KPIs on Customer Experience (CX).

The ROI on even small increases in CX Index score is significant. For a big-box retailer, a 1-point improvement can lead to an extra $244 million in incremental revenue, while a decrease in CX Index score can slash revenue and profit just as dramatically. **

Nothing says trust like giving them freedom – freedom to choose where they work (at home, or in the office), freedom to manage the customer interaction, and freedom to move. The last point is important for agents and supervisors – agents will be dealing with longer calls and so may need to consult with colleagues (without putting the customer on hold), or they may need to find information or to test a product. And supervisors need the mobility to roam the contact center to help coach agents whilst remaining in touch for any escalating phone calls.

Wireless headsets have made big advances recently, with features such as close-talk limiting (so a customer only hears the right conversation), active noise cancelling (to help an agent concentrate in a noisy office)  and high-level hearing protection (to ensure your employees’ welfare is guaranteed).

I’m proud to announce Poly has made a further advance today with the launch of the first DECT headset into the Philippines, expanding the countries that can benefit from our new Savi line. As a country where contact centers make up a large proportion of the service industry, I’m excited to see the benefits that this new product will bring – shorter calls because the agent and customer can hear each other clearly, better customer service because an employee can access information without putting the customer on hold and better customer experiences because experienced supervisors can be right next to employees to coach and guide them.

To transform the customer experience, start with equipping your employees with the right tools. The trust and empowerment will make them equipped to handle any situation and provide an experience that’s memorable for customers, for all the right reasons.

*Nemertes Research 2019

** Forrester Research 2019 – Light on the Horizon Report

A Preview of Poly at Microsoft Ignite

In order to realize the full power of Microsoft Teams, users need the right devices. What may work in my office, my conference room or even my ears likely won’t work for the next person.  So, how do you figure out which devices and form factors work for your employees? Ask them!

After 15 years (and counting) of partnering with Microsoft in the collaboration space, Poly understands that no two people or companies are alike. While the consistent backbone of Microsoft Teams makes sense, it’s critical to find the right device to meet different use cases.  Poly offers premium collaboration and communication experiences for both Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business, with flexible products and services that enable organizations to easily migrate to the cloud. From headsets to video conferencing, to handsets to audio conferencing, to video interop to services, Poly has all Teams customers covered.

This year at Ignite, we are showcasing our broadest device portfolio yet to reinforce our commitment to choice around Microsoft Teams.

Here’s a look at what to expect at the Poly booth (#2349):

• New Poly Studio X Series with a native Teams experience. We recently announced that we are refreshing our video line. The new Poly Studio X Series – our purpose-built, all-in-one video bars – will offer a native Teams meeting and calling experience. These easy-to-install and easy-to-use video bars will radically simplify video conferencing for small to mid-sized spaces.
• Poly Studio Certified for Teams. The award-winning Poly Studio, a plug-and-play USB video bar for huddle rooms, is now certified for Microsoft Teams. The Poly Studio USB video bar features room-filling audio, a 4K HD camera with built-in speaker tracking and framing, as well as support for remote cloud management for ongoing updates and configuration. The Poly Studio is currently available worldwide.
• New Poly CCX desk phones with Teams built in. Poly CCX is our new line of sleek Microsoft Teams phones that combine a native Teams experience with Poly premium voice quality. Three models, the CCX 400, CCX 500 and CCX 600, offer customer choice in features and pricing. All three integrate Teams contact lists, calendar and meetings. We encourage you to come and experience these at our booth.
• Voice and headset solutions optimized for Teams. The Calisto 3200 is Poly’s first native Teams personal speakerphone, so you can take Teams meetings anywhere. For in-office mobile professionals, we will also provide a preview of a new version of our highly popular Voyager 4200 and Voyager 5200 products optimized for Teams.

Poly Managed Service for Teams

Poly’s hosted service aims to accelerate Teams adoption in enterprises worldwide with a range of Managed Services to support enterprises on their entire Teams journey.

Stop by our booth (#2349) to learn more. The Microsoft booth (#1515) will also feature Poly products, including the Poly Studio X30, Poly Elara 60 Series mobile phone station, Calisto 3200, Voyager 4200, CCX 500 and the Trio 8800.

If you’re like me, one of the first things you do when you leave the house in the morning is put on your headset. I may be joining a meeting, calling a friend, getting coffee – sometimes all three – before I even set foot in the office. When I get to work, I’m collaborating with teammates who are in home and Poly offices throughout the country and world.

Here at Poly, we understand that every minute counts and that a good headset is a true partner in productivity. I’m pleased to announce two new outstanding features to our Voyager headsets that are going to help you get more out of your devices.

First, we have integrated Amazon Alexa into Voyager 5200 and Voyager 4200 UC Series. Just tap-and-ask, and Alexa will respond so you can focus on your tasks at hand. With Alexa built-in you can check your schedule, your to-do list or catch up on the latest news. And because Alexa lives in the cloud, it’s always getting smarter with new capabilities delivered to your device automatically.

Sounds useful, right? But say you accidentally left your headset at the coffee shop on your way into the office. You know you put it somewhere. Misplacing your headset, especially when you need it the most, can be frustrating, so we partnered with Tile, which makes finding your Voyager headset easy. Tile also comes with Voyager 5200 Series and Voyager 4200 UC Series, integrated right into the headset so you can literally “ring” it. When any user in Tile’s global network comes within range of your missing headset, the Tile app will notify you about its most recent location…like, the coffee shop.

For more information on Alexa built-in on our Voyager 4200 UC and Voyager 5200 headsets, please visit here. More information about these Voyager headset model integrations with Tile is available here.

Find solutions to reclaim your productivity

The following blog is the first of a four-part series on the latest headset technology to help you get the most out of your open office experience.

I frequently hear people say they are “working from home tomorrow to actually get work done.” We know from our own research that the most distracting thing in the open office are the coworkers.  And that just makes sense, since we are wired to pay attention to the human voice, whether that voice is shouting a warning or chitchatting about yesterday’s ball game or tomorrow’s blockbuster show on cable.

This isn’t new, of course. A 2018 study from Oxford Economics, found that only 1 percent of employees — down from 20 percent in 2015 — say they are able to block out distractions and concentrate without taking extra steps in the office. A 2019 study we did in conjunction with the HR consultancy Future Workplace showed that nearly three in four people would work in the office more – and be more productive – if employers would do more to reduce workplace distractions.

Poly understood this workplace trend from the beginning – we were open office before the trend ourselves – and we now have the widest range of Active Noise Canceling (ANC) headsets for open offices. While other companies may offer this technology, our approach is different.

Most people think of ANC as the type found in headphones used on airplanes where the goal is to block out everything. But Poly’s ANC is specifically tuned to noise frequencies you experience in an office, and purposely is not as intense as that headphone for a plane. Why?

• High levels of ANC over long periods can actually make you feel tired, contributing to the kind of fatigue you feel at the end of a long draining day.

• It’s uncomfortable, as some describe, like “pulling on ears.” Based on a blind test[1] of headsets used among office workers in an open office, study participants were 2xs more likely to find Poly’s active noise cancelling effective and comfortable.

• In the office, you don’t want to tune out everything, like you might on a plane—for example, you need to hear your own voice. If you’ve ever been really stuffed up and realized that since you can’t really hear, you’re talking louder – well the same thing applies if the ANC you’re using is too intense. And you talking louder – well, that just adds to the open office noise problem.

In addition to ANC, our headsets account for the fact that many people listen to music at work to help focus. Poly’s Voyager UC Series of stereo headsets, along with the Savi 8220, have amazing ANC but are equally good for your favorite music. They also cleverly integrate with the office UC system. When a call comes in, the headset gently reduces the music volume and plays the ringtone. When you answer, the music pauses so you can take the call and when it’s over, the music starts again and you’re back in the zone.

We stay tuned into how people are working – and tune our products to the most comfortable levels of ANC – so you can stay focused.

Learn more about the Perils of the Open Office and how Poly office headset solutions help you concentrate and be your best at work.

[1] Based on a study of employees of Clinc, a conversational AI company, conducted in Clinc’s open office setting on June 27-28, 2019, Participants wore non-branded versions of the Jabra Evolve 75 for up to six hours then the Poly Voyager Focus UC for up to 6 hours.

The Open Office Phenomenon

The open office is visually stunning and irrefutably popular. As companies strive to create better workspaces for their employees, they often favor the open office design. At first glance, open offices seem beneficial, promising to save thousands of real estate dollars and foster an environment for productive, collaborative work.

However, as many workers are now painfully aware, open offices aren’t living up to the hype. Noise and other distractions are more rampant and intrusive than ever before. In fact, a study out of the Center for the Built Environment at UC Berkeley that surveyed over 63,000 respondents from the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, Mexico, and Africa found that speech distractions were among the top complaints in open office layouts.

Noise distractions are further intensified by the inherent design of open offices. A 2014 CoreNet Global survey reported that the average square footage per worker dropped from 225 square feet in 2010 to 151 square feet in 2017, with personal workspace steadily decreasing at a rate of 9.25 square feet per worker per year. As companies tear down walls and private offices in favor of communal desks and “collaborative” spaces, employees are losing their privacy and experiencing a greater number of unwelcomed office conversations, conference calls, keyboard clacking, and other distracting noises.

Modern-day office spaces often include open workplace design with flexible workstations, huddle spaces, and contemporary design.

Global Trends

About six years ago, my company jumped feet-first into this collaborative new way of working and transformed Poly’s Santa Cruz Headquarters into a modern, open office layout—and we quickly came to understand the challenges of actually working in the open office environment. Despite the refreshing new office look, our associates found they were collaborating less, were more distracted, and felt less productive than ever before. How could an office designed for collaboration create such intense dissatisfaction?

This paradox compelled us to better understand open office dynamics. In June of 2016, we partnered with global research firm Oxford Economics to publish “When the Walls Come Down”—a report that surveyed over 1,200 senior executives and non-executive associates from industries around the world. What we found confirmed our suspicion: office noise optimization is one of the most important factors in an employee’s preferred work environment. Workers rated “the ability to focus and work without interruptions” are  more important than conventional perks like office amenities (free food, daycare) or personal space. It turns out the modern-day workplace’s new design introduced a new problem: noise pollution.

Sound Distraction

Human beings have a well-adapted sense of hearing and are particularly sensitive to certain sounds that may pose a threat, especially dynamic sounds. This is an evolutionary survival mechanism that we cannot turn off. And as it turns out, the most dynamic sound in the modern office is human speech; we literally cannot help being distracted by it.

Knowing this, we dove into the realm of psychoacoustics—the science of sound perception and our response to sound—in a sponsored effort with Terrapin Bright Green. Sound levels and sound spectrum are only partially responsible for how we interpret an acoustic experience. Imagine you are at a cocktail party; you can easily focus on conversations near you, but have a hard time trying to focus on conversations on the other side of the room. In contrast, if you are in a quiet library, your mind will easily pick up on a conversation happening across the room. At the cocktail party, your mind allows you to focus on the conversation you attach the most importance to. Without the presence of a closer and more important conversation, your mind naturally focuses on the next dynamic noise, which is likely the next conversation. We are unable to block out distracting conversations because we are hardwired to pay attention to them. While this is a great evolutionary trait for outdoor survival, it is not so great in the open office.

In addition to being bad for people, noise pollution is also bad for business. In 2018, we partnered with Oxford Economics again and found that millennials are particularly annoyed by office noise, and people in the noisiest offices are most likely to say they plan to leave their job within the next six months. As competition for talent intensifies, companies that have solved the noise distraction problem will have the advantage.

The Biophilic Hypothesis

Our primordial senses have a strong affinity for the elements of nature – something known as the biophilic hypothesis. Research shows that simply being in the presence of nature-inspired elements can have powerful impacts on wellbeing, creativity, and productivity. Yet despite this innate human desire to connect with nature, we’re inside most of the time. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the average American spends 87 percent of the day indoors and spends nearly as much time in the car (6 percent) as outside (7 percent).

Bringing nature inside has long been the ambition of many architects, designers, and engineers. In fact, biophilic design is a design principle that works to incorporate the benefits between linking nature and humans in the built environment. You can see many examples of this in modern office design, including living walls, natural color tones and patterns, and diffused lighting.

Biophilic design elements, such as this living wall, are common in modern offices.

In the modern office, biophilic design has primarily been applied to what we can see but omits the other senses we need to fully complete the experience. Let’s do a brief exercise. Close your eyes for a moment and transport yourself a place where you feel most relaxed, most comfortable, and most at peace. What did you see? If you are like most people that participate in this exercise, you were likely outdoors near a lake or on a beach. Now recall the details…maybe you heard the sound of a babbling brook or smelled fresh flowers in the air. Wouldn’t it be great to bring some of this to the place where we currently spend all of our time? Bringing nature into the office requires a multisensory approach; the more senses that are engaged, the more believable the experience is to our subconscious mind.

While biophilia in the open office might be a great conversation starter, does it really have an impact on the creativity and well-being of people in a normal office setting? We partnered with True Impact, a Neuroscience research firm, to find out. A group of test participants were asked to perform an open essay writing task in both a controlled environment with traditional office noises and in a biophilic office space with the sights and sounds of nature. The participant’s brain reactions were recorded using electroencephalography (big science word for EEG) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Overall, we found that environments with the sights and sounds of nature abated distractions. With an improved ability to focus, participants exhibited slightly greater emotional intensity, memory performance and better essay writing quality, including a more descriptive style and more rare words used. Neural data also showed a significant decrease in cognitive load. This indicates ease of comprehension and the result was an improvement in the overall quality of the essay. In this initial research, there was a strong link between the presence of biophilic elements and the impact on well-being, creativity, and productivity.

The Natural Antidote

So far this all sounds great, but what does all this biophilia have to do with distractions in the open office? As it turns out, there is a connection between the sounds of water and how our internal psychoacoustics perceive sound. We learned that natural water sounds—a stream running through the redwoods or gently crashing waves on the shore—are very effective at masking speech, even when compared to the more traditional method of using artificial broadband noises (such as pink noise). The benefits of these natural sounds are further amplified when tied to a visual counterpart, which provides additional sensory stimulation and a stronger immersion factor.

A New Era

As veterans in the audio communications industry, we started to explore solutions that could be applied to our own workspaces. First, systems we use, dubbed, sound masking systems, relied on the continuous dispersion of artificial broadband noises (i.e., white or pink noise) to drown out office cacophony for the entirety of the workday. The reception was mixed: some associates were tolerant of the artificial noise introduced into the office, but others saw it as an intrusive sound that negatively impacted their productivity. External research also revealed that prolonged exposure to artificial broadband noises is often associated with an increase in the body’s stress response. Exposing our employees to this type of technology was the last thing we wanted to do!

The culmination of all this research has led me to believe in one thing, using the power of nature will enable us to build workplaces around what really matters—the human experience. Using biophilia to solve the greatest threat to the open office is likely one of the more ambitious ideas out there, and I believe a new era of environmental enterprise technology is here. Biophilic technology—using nature-inspired sounds and visuals that mitigate office noise and simultaneously optimize employee well-being—will become the de-facto solution for creating the productive, collaborative workspaces open offices were intended to be. Ultimately, we all have the same mission: to build a peaceful space where collaboration and focus can happen at the same place, at the same time. Biophilic technology is the link that will make our mission a reality.

Example of multisensory biophilic design using waterfall feature.

This article originally appeared in the June 2019 issue of Sound & Communications.