With ‘back to office’ mandates filling up workspaces again, sharing space with that colleague who’s on the phone all day is putting our noise tolerance – and productivity – to the test.

Sound can have a surprisingly strong impact on our workplace wellbeing and focus. In a 2024 survey of more than 2000 knowledge workers across four countries by global professional audio brand Jabra, three-quarters of workers said that a loud working environment makes them “mentally tired” – and 63 per cent said it makes them physically tired or feel less passionate about their work.

While some noises are obvious (you can’t ignore a jackhammer), those surveyed singled out everyday noises we learn to put up with: the whirring of a printer, heavy-handed keyboard clattering and colleagues taking calls without headsets.

So how are we to balance light office buzz with productivity-killing noise? Let’s investigate.

Small business sound check

At the Darlinghurst office of Sydney PR and communications agency Maven PR, hustle and bustle is par for the course. 

“Every day is different in the Maven PR office,” says founder and director Sophie Muir. “Whether it’s someone in the team talking on the phone to a supplier or journalist, deliveries coming in, someone having a client Google Meets call, or our office dog Teddy barking at passers-by. One of our team usually acts as the office DJ too, so we’ll generally have music playing in the office.”

Juggling the action of the office with focus time takes effort. “We’re in quite a small office so we don’t have any breakout rooms unfortunately, so when I need to concentrate, I tend to put my headphones on to listen to my own music that helps me focus,” says Sophie.

“If I need to do a client call, I’ll use headphones and the noise cancellation function on my phone to block out the sounds of a buzzing PR agency from the background of my calls.”

Sophie Muir, founder of Sydney’s Maven PR, keeps busy with her food and drinks clients. Image: Supplied.

At the Melbourne-based open-plan office of reusable water bottle brand memobottle, soft music on the office speaker, phone booth-style padded rooms and coffee catch-ups are encouraged to keep noise at the right level.

“Phones seem to always be on silent, although this isn’t a rule,” Jonathan Byrt, memobottle director and co-founder shares. “Our office is in Richmond [Melbourne] so there is quite a bit of external traffic noise. Staff are instructed to keep phone conversations and meetings to the phone rooms and meeting rooms to avoid disruption of everyone else.

“We generally head for a walk to get a coffee together so a lot of the socialising and chatter is done during these times. Headphones are used if we need to listen to anything on our computers.”

While both Sophie and Jonathan spend plenty of time at the office, they also work hybrid and travel regularly for clients and events. Jonathan recalls the early days of memobottle when he arranged trademarks with a lawyer from the corner of a Chicago nightclub.

Nowadays, the background noise is more likely to be his two-year-old son on work-from-home days.

Memobottle founder Jonathan Byrt with one of his slim premium reusable water bottle products. Image: Supplied.

For Suze English, campaign manager at Pinstripe Media (publishers of Business Builders), working remotely full-time has its own noise challenges.

“My home office has large windows facing a rural highway, so traffic can be very noisy at certain times of the day. I also share the office with a furry co-worker – our dog – who enjoys barking at birds and howling along with emergency vehicles as they race by on the highway.

“On any given day, I can be battling flocks of squawking cockatoos in my backyard, neighbours mowing their lawns, heavy rainstorms on my office’s tin roof, or noisy cattle trucks lumbering by… sometimes all of these at once. So, headsets with in-built microphones have been a game-changer to help me focus at noisy times, minimise background noise on calls, and maintain call privacy in public settings like airports when I’m working on the run.”

Pinstripe Media’s Suze English uses a headset for her calls. Image: Supplied.

How to take the stress out of sound

In Jabra’s research, office noise came up as a key stress factor alongside heavy workloads and poor communication.

Better acoustic strategies in office design play a role, as do changes in team habits (like those coffee catchups Jonathan talked about).

But reducing office interruptions using tech can also help. According to the research, employees taking calls without headsets is the biggest bugbear for many workers. Who really needs to hear every conversation?

Using professional headsets in the office isn’t just good for taking online meetings and calls, but has proven benefits for focus and productivity. In fact, almost half the surveyed workers reported positive effects on work performance and stress levels when wearing a headset.

Not all headsets are created equal, though. Poor audio quality, inadequate noise cancellation and lack of comfort can create even more office stress, with more than half of the survey’s respondents citing increased stress, decreased focus and heightened fatigue from having to use poor equipment.

Professional headsets, on the other hand, can improve wellbeing even if you’re not on a call and you’re just listening to music.

Another third of users need their headsets to help them concentrate, which requires active noise cancellation to go beyond just office conversation but also to include street noise, construction work and one of the most annoying things of all: the pinging of electronic notifications on devices across the office.

Professional devices for the win

Professional devices bring various advantages compared with the use of bare laptops, telephone handsets, or headphones designed for music use.

In a professional set of headphones, advanced noise cancellation blocks out surrounding noises. They also allow for simple plug-and-play use – a good pair will reduce the scrambling around hunting for connections and settings; instead, a single button joins a meeting. 

Need to mute? Don’t hunt for a menu: just push your microphone boom away to reliably mute in a single action.

Another benefit of professional headsets is their comfort. With knowledge workers in meetings up to 25 per cent of their day, potentially 10 hours or more a week, they need a headset design which is intended for long-term use: lightweight, and fully foam-cushioned.

The benefits go beyond the users themselves by making it easier for others in meetings to hear everything clearly, with background noise removed from coworkers, children and other ambient sources. Nearly 90 per cent of users think they sound more professional using a professional headset than consumer headphones made primarily for music.

What’s so good about Jabra?

Switch between devices easily with Jabra’s Bluetooth-enabled headsets. Image: Jabra.

More than 80 per cent of global Fortune 500 brands already rely on Jabra’s expertise in headsets, intelligent video technology and advanced earbuds.

Designed in Denmark, with an emphasis on sustainable practices, Jabra’s ranges cover headsets of all shapes and sizes: buds and bands and over-ears, wired and wireless, with industry-leading noise cancellation, and with voice intelligibility guaranteed by up to six microphones per headset.

As many businesses increase their in-office days, investing in professional-quality headsets from Jabra holds potential benefits worth hearing about. 

The numbers speak for themselves: 43 per cent of knowledge workers reported that higher-quality audio in meetings provided clearer communication, as well as improved collaboration (40 per cent), and better understanding of how they could help others (24 per cent).

As for those interruptions from other employees, some Jabra headset models include a ‘Busy Light’ that can let others know that you are on a call, or focused on important work, and not to be interrupted.

It’s one potential solution that could help us all out as offices get noisier – whether it’s your loud colleague, fur baby or actual baby.

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This article is brought to you by Business Builders in partnership with Jabra.