Music and Office Productivity

It has become common to plug in headphones and shut the outside world out, especially when you work in an office environment. However, I found myself wondering whether this was positive or negative. Read on to find out the pros and cons of music in the workplace.

Music Makes the Office More Productive

Pros of Music in The Office:

Influences work ethic

Listening to your favourite tunes has been proven to reduce stress. It calms and aids in concentration, in turn boosting productivity levels. Allowing employees to plug in and listen to their own tunes can improve their moods and work output.

Makes things fun

Tuning into one’s mp3 player, phone, computer or even radio makes the brain work faster, increasing mental performance. This is especially true when an employee’s job requires completing the same task throughout the entire day.

Creativity

Music inspires the creative part of the brain to work better. Thus, music may allow more creative solutions to a problem.

Blocks out a distraction-filled office

The loud typing of a co-worker’s keyboard, the voices of people talking, the ringing of the telephone, all these pose as distractions that can be blocked out through the use of music. In an office filled with distractions, music acts a positive distraction.

Cons of Tunes in The Office:

Can’t hear yourself think 

To some, listening to songs is the biggest distraction one could possibly think of. Several people claim that music strays their thought processes and makes it difficult to focus on the task at hand. Further, music can make it very difficult to learn new tasks.

May become a loner

Tuning the world out to listen to your music may increase your work performance, however it may make you appear to be unsocial and unapproachable to co-workers. 

Others could be able to hear it

If you work in an office space where everyone is in very close quarters to one another, this may be distracting to those seated around you. If you are listening to headphone or earphones where the sound leaks surrounding people will most likely be able to hear that annoying buzz of your music. To prevent this, make sure that your volume is set fairly low.

There you have it, the pros and cons of listening to your favourite tunes in the workplace. Just remember that if you do decide to start listening to music in the workplace, you are considerate to everyone around you. Keep the volume low so that others around you can’t hear it and so that you can hear them if they have an important question.