Back to the office: Addressing accessibility in hybrid work environments

As organizations continue to usher employees back to the office, we see our customers implementing a mix of home and office work balance. In speaking with our customers, many expect that employees will continue to work remotely 2-3 days a week. As a result, organizations are adapting work spaces to accommodate this new hybrid model. From reducing their office footprint and transforming dedicated office space to flexible workspace and adapting hybrid meeting rooms.

Flex Space

Many employees that may have had dedicated workstations in the past are being asked to work at flex workstations (“hotdesking”). While modern office designs have already challenged acoustics, with their open floor plans and hard surfaces – the daily fluctuation in the number of employees in the office, continuously varies the noise levels and presents added challenges for speech privacy and employees’ ability to concentrate. To address these challenges – organizations are continuing to leverage sound masking technology to improve acoustics, protect speech privacy and boost productivity.

Sound masking systems generate a soft, subtle background ambient sound, like airflow, through specially designed loudspeakers hidden throughout the space. The workspace’s soundscape becomes more uniform and relaxing, with noisy distractions effectively muffled out – providing occupants with a greater sense of privacy and making it much easier to concentrate on their work.

Hybrid Meeting Rooms & Workstation Adaptation

In the new era of remote work, the past few years have shown employees the opportunity to customize their home offices and workstations in the comfort of their home offices. With the return to the office, organizations are giving special consideration to hybrid meeting spaces and workstations to ensure they are optimized for employees that may be hard of hearing.

Attention is being given to the design of hybrid meeting spaces, meeting rooms and huddle rooms to ensure audio and video are optimized to ensure intelligible natural communication. From assistive listening technology to speech intelligibility software these accommodations continue to make a difference in ensuring spaces are inclusive and accessible for everyone, especially employees that may be hard of hearing.

Images used in this article:

Photo by Shridhar Gupta on Unsplash

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash