White Noise Machine for Office Spaces

Our world is a busy one. When we consider the amount of focus it takes to juggle work, family, and outings with friends, there’s no wonder why we need to delete some distractions. Keeping yourself calm and productive in one environment helps you deal with the stressors you encounter in the others.

One of the biggest distractions in the workplace is noise. When we feel distracted, our output can suffer, and the stress carries over into other aspects of our lives. When we want to neutralize noise distractions, adding a white noise machine for office privacy is a game changer. 

What is white noise?

Most of us have heard the term “white noise” thrown around here and there but don’t know exactly what it is. The fact that it’s nondescript may have something to do with that. Many people attribute the term white noise to any soft, soothing sound that may come out of a sleep machine, but true white noise sounds like radio or television static.

White noise is a combination of all the audible frequencies on the spectrum, distributed at equal volumes or intensity. Think of it in terms of color. White light is an equal combination of the other colors, and white noise equals low, medium, and high frequencies. This mix allows white noise machines to act as incredible relaxation and speech privacy systems.

Some machines labeled as white noise machines actually produce pink noise or brown noise. White noise can often be confused with pink or brown noise, but each concept is unique. They are all generated randomly, but they sound different due to differing levels in each frequency range.

What is pink noise?

Pink noise is very similar to white noise, but it emphasizes low frequencies over high frequencies. It’s more bass-heavy than true white noise. In nature, you’ll hear pink noise in light rain or leaves rustling on the rooftop. It’s great for lulling us to sleep and does provide some decent sound masking benefits, but the lack of higher frequencies can make pink noise somewhat less effective at masking sounds in office settings.

What is brown noise?

Another type of ambient sound that people confuse with white noise is brown noise. Like pink noise, the lower frequencies are more prevalent in brown noise, but the higher frequencies are all but absent in the case of brown noise. Think of sounds like flowing rivers or strong winds. It’s another type of sound that’s great for relaxing us and improving our focus.

How a white noise machine for office privacy improves the workplace

Most of us who have some experience with white noise machines have used them to help us sleep more soundly through the night. They provide an ambient room tone, which helps solve the problem of the silent room. While using a white noise machine for tinnitus is a godsend, they do much more than that to contribute to a good night’s sleep. 

The wide range of sounds produced by the white noise machine can gently mask sounds at nearly any frequency and help us stay asleep by minimizing the change in the audible atmosphere created by a dog barking or a cabbie honking. They don’t completely cover the sounds but make them much less noticeable than they would be against a silent backdrop.

While we hopefully aren’t sleeping soundly at the office, the same concepts that calm our minds and allow us to sleep can make us more productive and less stressed when used in the workplace. Let’s look at some of the advantages to utilizing a white noise machine for office privacy.

How white noise machines for office privacy can help us focus better?

If you’ve ever had someone begin rattling off numbers while you were trying to count or do math, you understand how distracting background noise can be to your concentration, productivity, and accuracy. To those of us without the luxury of a door that we can close, office background noise in the workplace presents a very real problem.

White noise machines eliminate all the small sounds from standing out. Walking on hardwood floors, clicking our pens, and typing on keyboards all seem like minor nuisances, but they add up. When you’ve got an entire office full of these sounds, they become downright distracting. Adding a white noise machine to your cubicle or common space can cover all those sounds and leave you feeling focused.

A white noise machine can also help us focus at work by obfuscating conversations within earshot. Rather than focusing on ignoring the gossip that’s floating into our ears, the white noise creates enough sound frequencies that your coworkers’ conversation gets absorbed into the ambient sounds of the room, allowing you to focus on the task at hand.

They provide cover for confidential conversations

Speaking of silencing conversations, sometimes the conversation we are trying to muffle is the one we are having. Whether we’re having confidential conversations with our clients or taking a call from our doctor, there are some discussions that we want to keep private. When leaked information could lead to breaches of contract or lawsuits, the need for a white noise machine to prevent eavesdropping grows exponentially.

They can help keep your clients happy

When we are less stressed and more focused at work, we make fewer mistakes and deliver better service. We also deliver that service in a fraction of the time it would have taken us if we were being distracted regularly. When we deliver quality quickly, clients are happy.

Another benefit of white noise machines emerges when your clients understand that the chances of their sensitive conversations making its way to everyone within earshot are low. They can sleep a little easier knowing their info is in good hands.

They can reduce stress

Stress reduction is a key component to keeping your employees happy, healthy, and productive. When we’re overly stressed, we can become easily distracted, and our productivity plummets. While we can’t control every stressor our employees face, employers can impact the amount of noise they have to deal with. 

The fact that prolonged exposure to noise impacts performance is well documented. Noise makes us edgy and unfocused, and the result can be an overall increase in stress levels. Adding a sound masking system to the office can have a noticeable impact on your team’s physical and mental health.

White noise machines in combination with acoustical treatments

If you’re serious about reducing unwanted noise in the workplace, adding acoustical treatments to complement your white noise machine will make your efforts more meaningful. Utilizing things like fabric wrapped acoustic wall panels and ceiling clouds reduce the overall amount of noise in the space, meaning your white noise machine doesn’t have to work as hard at covering the noise.

If your office is located in a noisy neighborhood, you may be more concerned with learning how to block out noise than you are with reducing the volume of the noise produced within your workplace. If that’s the case, white noise machines can help, but you’ll need to employ soundproofing materials to add mass and density to your walls and windows. That’s something that requires serious planning and dedication to making it happen. It also requires a much larger budget. If you can’t swing the expense right now, try a white noise machine. You’ll be surprised at how much they help.

Finding the best white noise machine for office settings

When researching the ideal white noise machine for office settings, you’ll want to make sure the machine is capable enough to handle your needs. Our Noise S.T.O.P. Soundscreen White Noise Machine is small, portable, and the volume can be adjusted to tackle a variety of nuisance noise situations. If you want to add acoustic panels or soundproofing materials, we’ve got those too. Reach out when you’re ready to take your office noise control to the next level.

As employees return to the office after more than a year of working from home, they’ll quickly notice how much more noise exists in the office than at their homes. Those with children on summer vacation may not notice, but the rest of them will. They’ll also notice that it’s harder to find a quiet place for discussing sensitive subjects. Adding a white noise machine for office privacy will help alleviate noise concerns as your employees make the transition back to the office and make them feel a whole lot better about their return to normal.