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Workplace
Open plan isn't too loud. It's too intelligible.
The distinction sounds pedantic and it is the whole reason most acoustic spending goes to the wrong place.
Open-plan offices rarely fail on raw volume — a working floor sits around 55 to 65 dB, which is not loud. What breaks concentration is intelligible speech: the brain cannot ignore a conversation it can follow. That is why headphones, screens and acoustic panels each solve part of the problem, and why containing the conversation in an enclosure is the only fix that removes it entirely.
Why speech is the problem, not noise
Steady, meaningless sound is easy to tune out. Air conditioning, traffic hum, a distant printer — the brain files them as background within minutes.
Speech is different, because language is processed involuntarily. If you can make out words, you are following them whether you intend to or not, and that competes directly with whatever you were reading or writing. This is why a single audible phone call disrupts a floor more than a much louder air handling unit.
It also explains a pattern every office manager recognises: the room does not feel loud, and nobody can concentrate.
Why it compounds through the day
The Lombard effectWhen a space is reverberant, speech becomes harder to follow, so people unconsciously raise their voices. Everyone else does the same. The ambient level climbs through the morning without anyone deciding to be louder.
That is why hard-surfaced offices get progressively worse. Concrete, glass and exposed ceilings reflect sound, reverberation lengthens, voices rise to compensate, and by mid-afternoon the floor is genuinely unpleasant. Measuring decibels alone misses the cause entirely.
The four fixes, and what each actually does
| Fix | What it does | What it does not |
|---|---|---|
| Acoustic panels | Reduce reverberation, make the room less harsh and less tiring | Stop anyone being overheard. Absorption is not isolation |
| Desk screens | Cut visual distraction, absorb a little at close range | Contain a phone call. A screen is not a barrier |
| Sound masking | Raise the noise floor so distant speech stops being intelligible | Make the room quieter, or give confidentiality |
| An enclosure | Removes the conversation from the floor entirely | Nothing else does this |
All four have a place, and the order matters. Absorption first if the space is reverberant, then enclosure for the conversations that need to leave the floor, then masking for the ambient middle ground. Screens are the cheapest and solve the smallest part of it.
What headphones actually do
Headphones stop the wearer hearing the room. They do nothing about the room hearing the wearer.
That asymmetry is the whole issue. The person on a client call at their desk is not distracted — everyone around them is. Handing out noise-cancelling headphones treats the symptom for the people who are not causing the problem, and it is why the objection comes up in every internal discussion and never survives contact with the facts.
Where an enclosure earns its place
A Class A booth reduces speech by around 30 dB under ISO 23351-1, which means a normal speaking voice inside is not intelligible outside it. The conversation is not quieter — it is gone from the floor.
That is the only intervention on the list that removes the source rather than managing it, and it is why offices that install two or three booths report a bigger change than offices that spend the same money on panels.
Where to start on a real floor
Work out whether it is reverberation or speech
Stand on the floor at 11am. If it sounds harsh and boomy with voices bouncing, that is reverberation and absorption is the first spend. If it sounds normal but you can follow three conversations from your desk, that is intelligible speech and panels will not help.
Find where the calls actually happen
Usually one corner: sales, recruitment, client services. That is where the enclosure goes, not the quiet end with spare floor space.
Put in two rather than one
People stop trying after finding a booth occupied twice. One booth on a busy floor frequently ends up unused, which is the most expensive outcome available.
Common questions
Why is my open-plan office so distracting?
Usually not volume. A working floor sits around 55 to 65 dB, which is not loud. The problem is intelligible speech — the brain processes language involuntarily, so a conversation you can follow competes with whatever you are trying to do.
Do acoustic panels stop people being overheard?
No. Panels absorb reflections and reduce reverberation, which makes a room less harsh and less tiring. They do not stop sound travelling between people. Containing a conversation requires an enclosure.
Do headphones fix office noise?
Only for the wearer. Headphones stop you hearing the room; they do nothing about the room hearing you. The person taking a call at their desk is not the one being distracted.
What is the Lombard effect?
The unconscious tendency to raise your voice when a space is reverberant and speech is harder to follow. Everyone does it, the ambient level climbs through the day, and the floor gets progressively louder without anyone choosing to be loud.
What actually reduces distraction in an open-plan office?
In order: absorption if the space is reverberant, an enclosure for the conversations that need to leave the floor, then sound masking for ambient distraction. Screens are the cheapest and address the smallest part of the problem.
Not sure which problem you have?
Describe what your floor sounds like at 11am and roughly where the calls happen. We will tell you honestly whether a pod is the right spend or whether something cheaper fixes it.