Noise levels within an open plan office

Ciaron Dunne
Member - 85 posts

Lindsay,

Some info on the legal requirements.

Under the Noise at Work Regulations 1989, employers have a legal duty to reduce the risk of damage to employees? hearing.

The first 'action level' is 85 dB(A). If noise levels in any work area are 85 dB(A) or above, the employer must provide affected employees with information and training on the risks to their hearing, explain what they can do to minimise the risk, and provide suitable ear protectors for any affected employee who asks for them.

It would be very unlikely that the noise levels in your office reach these levels. The rule of thumb is that, if you need to raise your voice to speak to someone standing two metres away from you, then you have reached the first action level. If so, a competent person should carry out a proper noise assessment.

It is worth bearing in mind that noise is any unwanted sound. I will be interested to read what other members have to say about best practice noise levels in an office environment.

I would recommend that you get hold of the relevant HSE guidance, which suggests measures to reduce noise at work, from: www.hse.gov.uk/noise

Hope that helps.

Anonymous

Thanks Ciaron. I suspect a hidden agenda here following a change to company rules on eligibility for offices. At least I will be able to have the legislation at my fingertips!

Anonymous

There are several types of noise in offices ? those produced by building services and those by occupancy.

Building services noise can be constant and/or repetitive. Occupancy noise varies according to task and level of activity. Building noise is often constant. Occupancy noise varies.

People have differing sensitivities to noise levels and character. Complaints about noise are mainly related to building noise. Ventilation/air conditioning noise can be offensive to some manifesting in rising stress, fatigue and/or head aches.

As a guide, the accumulative value of noise from all sources in a quite office should not exceed NR35 measured at seated ear height with no occupancy noise. Noise having excess rumble or hiss can create problems too.

Please contact me if you require further help. Edward.veale@vealea.com

Anonymous

Even in a quiet office the noise levels are on an average 60 dB. OSHA and NIOSH have a clear cut directive on this. Visit the site. The formula to calculate the number of hours a person can work in a particular noise level is as follows.

16 / (( dB ? 85 ) / 5 ) 2

Thanks for sharing my opinion.

Anonymous

Whilst there is no UK legislation relating to noise in offices, provided that levels are below the criteria set in the Noise at Work legislation, there are recommended values to ensure freedom from disturbance and to provide suitable conditions for communication and concentration on work. Occupational noise from others (speech, telephones, etc) is the usual cause for complaint, not building services noise(assuming there is no significant character to it), particularly if the subject has been moved from a cellular office to open plan. Disturbance and loss of concentration can cause annoyance, which could lead to stress.

In the UK, BS 8233:1999, Sound insulation and noise reduction for buildings - Code of Practice, provides recommendations for limiting noise in various types of buildings. The recommendation for "reasonable conditions for study and work requiring concentration in a cellular office is 40-50 dB LAeq, while for open plan offices the criterion is 45-50 dB LAeq and is based on "reasonable acoustic privacy in shared spaces". These criteria are for unoccupied spaces and would typically result from break-in of traffic noise and the noise from services (air-conditioning, etc).

There are measures that can be undertaken to reduce the effects of occupancy noise, including

1) use of bland, continuous masking noise - this can be from the building services or a specially designed audio system. Normally a level of NR 35-40 (approximately 40-45 dB LAeq) is used. For masking noise, it is better to be at the top of this range, perhaps a little higher, while remaining within the limits recommended in BS8233.

2) Use of acoustically absorptive materials to reduce reverberant noise levels - an absorptive ceiling is most effective (preferably using the most absorptive, ie Class A, materials), but absorptive pin boards can also be used on the walls to provide a (limited) amount of extra absorption.

3) Absorptively faced screens in the transmission path to limit transmission of direct sound.

Other than that, occupancy noise is the downside of open plan offices. I have seen people wearing hearing protection, or even using a personal stereo system to limit intrusive noise, but these would not normally be recommended as a solution!

Alan Tye
Member - 1 post

If as described and this is a normal computer based office, it is not really a matter of measuring noise levels or quoting the law. Different people have different sensitivity to noise and once one has a bee in the bonnet about it, it is genuinely difficult to be satisfied. The neighbour's barking dog will always be heard by someone disturbed and offended by the problem.

Whilst VERY sympathetic to the person complaining, open plan offices are not good news for serious work and came about because of economy not to improve working conditions, he/she does have to find a new way of thinking about the problem, above all for the sake of their own health and well being. As the work situation is unlikely to change and if this mental re-orentation of the problem fails they will have to leave that job situation.

Of course all this assumes that others in the office behave sympathetically, there but for the grace of god go I, and seriously do what they can to reduce noise pollution. Examples are no radio or ear phones, quiet voice not mobile phone voice.......

Best wishes, we are all in difficult environmental situations in offices which have a variety of pollutions causing stress in one way or the other.

As designers of environments, one of our sayings is "Work is not designed for health".

Anonymous

We had a similar problem in our office areas leading me to look for guidance. I found the following:

Regulation

Germany took a leadership role on 1976 May 01 with what is commonly referred to as the Work Place Noise Law, that regulates the maximum noise level in the workplace to be 55 dB(A) for work involving mainly mental activities.

Guidelines

Elsewhere, to date, no potential adverse health effect of low level noise is well enough established to be used as grounds for regulating office noise levels. One approach for tackling disturbing or annoying office noise levels is to refer to the acceptable noise levels recommended in some well known publications,

e.g.,

Handbook of Acoustical Measurements and Noise Control, Third Edition, edited by Cyril M. Harris et al., published in 1991 by McGraw-Hill, Inc. pp.43.17,

Table 43.1:

Executive offices: 33 - 38 dBA

Private offices: 38 - 43 dBA

Open-plan offices: 43 - 48 dBA

The lower value is intended for use as a goal in the design of the HVAC system serving the space; the higher value is the recommended limit in specifying the performance of the system under actual operating conditions in the field.

Noise and Vibration Control Engineering: Principles and Applications, edited by Leo L. Beranek and Istvan L. Ver, published in 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. pp. 633,

Table 17.1:

Private or semiprivate offices: 38 - 48 dBA

Large offices: 43 - 53 dBA

The values are for steady background noise as heard in occupied functional activity areas.

A second approach is to adopt the guidelines from recognised national or international bodies with an interest in employee safety or well-being (NIOSH & Safety Canada have good info.)

And of course there is the golden rule. If I wouldn't like that level of noise in my office, the level is most probably too high!

Anonymous

Ear plugs only cost a few bob!

Anonymous

I would like to thank everyone who submitted comments in response to my query. These were most informative with useful further contacts.

Anonymous

Complaints can be generated about too low noise levels too. In a quiet office, every sound can be a distraction, not to mention the problem of speec privacy. Sound Masking can be a sloutio9n in these circumstances

Anonymous

A few years ago I was in a similar position having moved into an open plan office from my own private office. To make matters worse I was opposite my bosses office which had an open sliding window. Phone privacy or interviews were impossible and concentration difficult. The good news is that after a number of weeks I found that I could ignore all the noise distractions and concentrate as before, so it should only be a matter of time. Regarding the privacy for interviews or important phone calls, I made use of any un-occupied office (owner temporary absent)this practice was then taken up as policy for all.

Huw Thomas
Member - 2 posts

We have hundreds of people who work in open plan environments. From the CEO down, nobody has a private office. This culture has led to a busy and vibrant culture within the workplace and the staff and the company actually feel the company has benifited from the open plan environment.

This is not to deny that noise is an issue we have just provided more break out space, work from home policies, quiet rooms (library study desk type area's) and phone rooms for those private phone calls (similar to telphone boxes).

This mix of alternatives helps but you will always get the individual who feels that a private office works better when in fact it more of status symbol than a productive work environment.

I personally would survey the rest of the office to try and find out the root cause and if they have a noise issue.

Regards

Huw Thomas

Anonymous

Lindsay, I think Ciaron had the right approach and its one I adopt frequently with such issues working in a call centre environment.

Do a proper risk (in your case noise) assessment, and then take the individual to a private room and let them see it. If you find no case for change generally they would be hard put to find fault if all their greivences have been investigated properly and thoroughly. The best bet is then to get them to sign a copy to show that they had read it.

Any future complaints from the same individual are now nullified as they know what you, as the employer, consider reasonable in those circumstances, and know the issue has already been looked at.

However, it goes without saying that any risks you do find must be eliminated as part of this process, and must be clearly identified in the report.

Philip