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Noisy Coworkers And Other Sounds Are A Distraction In Workplace Open offices are
often said to promote teamwork and communication, but the benefits come with a
drawback. Office workers are also distracted by coughs, loud conversations and
other annoying noises.


BUSINESS


WHAT'S MORE DISTRACTING THAN A NOISY CO-WORKER? TURNS OUT, NOT MUCH

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October 26, 20164:36 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition

Yuki Noguchi

Twitter

WHAT'S MORE DISTRACTING THAN A NOISY CO-WORKER? TURNS OUT, NOT MUCH

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Sounds, particularly those made by other humans, rank as the No. 1 distraction
in the workplace. According to workplace design expert Alan Hedge at Cornell, 74
percent of workers say they face "many" instances of disturbances and
distractions from noise.

"In general, if it's coming from another person, it's much more disturbing than
when it's coming from a machine," he says, because, as social beings, humans are
attuned to man-made sounds. He says overheard conversations, as well as
high-pitched and intermittent noises, also draw attention away from tasks at
hand.

The popularity of open offices has exacerbated the problem. The University of
California's Center for the Built Environment has a study showing workers are
happier when they are in enclosed offices and less likely to take sick days.


BUSINESS


YAY, IT'S TIME FOR MY PERFORMANCE REVIEW! (SAID NO ONE EVER)

This does not bode well for some workers facing cold and flu season, when
hacking coughs make the rounds. But some people, such as Milwaukee Web developer
Taj Shahrani, contend with it year-round.

He had a colleague who sat a short cubicle wall away and would, as he says,
"shout-cough" at regular intervals.

"He never covered his mouth," he says. The violent episodes, which Shahrani and
another colleague kept tallies of, would shake his desk and interrupt
conversations and phone calls.



"I would always know when it was coming because you would hear that sharp
intake, like he's about to cough, and you'd always wince and stop what you're
doing because you knew it was going to be sort of loud and hard to hear,"
Shahrani says.

After months of this, he went from concern about contagion to irritation about
the interruptions. Still, he never broached the subject with the offender or the
boss.

"It's sort of taboo to criticize someone for an illness," Shahrani says. It's
only months later, when he was moved to a new desk in an office reshuffling,
that he realized just how much more work he accomplished without constant
interruption.

Rue Dooley, an adviser at the Society for Human Resource Management, says HR
professionals often call in, asking how to manage co-worker complaints about
various bodily noises.


BUSINESS


BEFORE YOU JUDGE LAZY WORKERS, CONSIDER THEY MIGHT SERVE A PURPOSE

The answer? It depends on the circumstance. For example, in a previous job,
Dooley shared an office with a man who liked to eat frozen carrots and had the
hacking cough of someone with chronic bronchitis.

Dooley says he found the carrot-munching funny. The coughing was less amusing,
he says. While employers worry about contagion and lost productivity of someone
bringing an illness to work, they also have a legal obligation to accommodate
employees who have an illness or a disability. He says by law, employers have to
accommodate them.



What those accommodations are might vary. A waitress or shop clerk with a
hacking cough might require a sick day or a reassignment, in which case Dooley
says it's OK for a manager to say: "That cough is turning customers away. We
can't have you on the floor with that."

There are other noises that fall into that indelicate in-between territory —
like flatulence.


BUSINESS


ADVICE FOR DEALING WITH WORKPLACE RETALIATION: SAVE THOSE NASTY EMAILS

Four years ago, the Social Security Administration reprimanded a worker for his
"excessive flatulence." After numerous complaints and warnings, the agency
charged him with "conduct unbecoming a federal employee." The employee claimed
he had lactose intolerance, and after his union intervened, the reprimand was
rescinded.

Then there is the gross interruption that is totally preventable.

Denver electrical engineer Kendra Lyons sits a few cubicles down from an
unfiltered loud talker whose phone conversations include details about her
gynecology and family disputes.

"It would throw me off, and then I would find it really hard to tune out and not
listen to her for the rest of the conversation, so I would end up eavesdropping
rather than doing my work," Lyons says.

Now, she says she drowns it out with headphones blasting electronica or the
Hamilton soundtrack — anything with a strong beat.

There are solutions, says Cornell's Hedge. The trend toward open offices and
hard office furniture makes noise distraction worse, so adding carpet, drapes
and upholstery can help. He recommends, perhaps counterintuitively, getting rid
of cubicle walls, which provide the illusion of sound privacy, but actually make
people less aware of the noises they create.

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