Cubicle offices have been growing in popularity for decades. Intel is famous for starting the cubicle revolution many decades ago. At Intel, even management is known to work from cubicles. This type of environment does work for some companies, but other companies find it presents a certain set of difficulties.

Some companies claim it fosters creativity and team playing. They claim employees work better together when they’re in closer quarters, and they can communicate more readily. Proponents of the cubicle system say employees grow closer in this type of environment, and are more capable of being team players.Some people say they prefer cubicles over standard offices because their fellow employees can’t shut them out and become inaccessible. But that is also a big drawback to many other employees.

Many people find that when they can’t shut people out, they get interrupted too often. It’s true in most offices. When there is no closed door, it makes those employees seem much more approachable. Even putting up a “do not disturb” is often not enough to keep people from dropping by their cubicle for a chat.

That leads us to another major drawback of cubicles. People who work in cubicle offices often find the noise level unacceptable. Without walls or doors to separate them and offer privacy, they often find it extremely difficult to concentrate. Employees can lose focus and find it very difficult to remain productive when they can’t escape behind a closed door.

It’s no big surprise that some employees find it very difficult to concentrate with excessive noise . Noise, especially from speech, is one of the most distracting things in the world! It’s extremely hard to concentrate with conversations going on nearby.

Conversations are especially prevalent in cubicle farms. Since their open nature makes it easy to talk to coworkers, people tend to talk to each other a lot more in cubicle offices. This leads not only to direct disruption, but also to indirect distraction due to the conversations taking place around you.

The human brain is trained to recognize speech. Even when conversation is going on in a language we don’t know, our brains naturally try to focus on them. It’s a method of preservation. We listen for clues in conversations that something bad might happen, or something that might affect us directly.

Sound masking systems are one of the only viable ways to reduce distraction from noise in the workplace. They use white noise to turn the sound from speech into noise that isn’t so distracting. They make conversation noise easy to tune out; in the same way it’s easy to tune out the noise from a fan or computer. Installing a sound masking system in a cubicle farm can really go a long way toward minimizing distractions, and will lead to happier, more productive workers.