§ Can the effectual use of music in the workplace be described as a positive enforcement of a relaxing, productive and harmonious working environment, or rather, in contrast, does it produce negative effects, for example, to aggravate, annoy and distract?

§ What are the advantages and disadvantages of introducing music into the workplace?

Music has been shown in the past to help maintain a high productive workforce which is what every employer and employee endeavours to uphold. However, as past studies have generalized the findings regarding music in the workplace (a necessary procedure for scientific research), a clear understanding has not been realised as to whether music helps ALL employees to concentrate. A piece of music may be helping nine out of ten employees work, but that is to say that the other one employee is being distracted by the same music. According to a study published in 1994 in Communication Monographs, “Employees have a wide range of musica

Some jobs are very repetitive and monotonous, such as entering data into a database / spreadsheet or typing up a long document. These jobs require a little “spice” to keep the employees ‘sane’! This spice could be whistling or tapping out a rhythm with their feet. This however could get annoying for other workers in the office or work environment. There are arguments for individual employees to wear headphones to listen to different genres of music so as not to interfere with other employees’ work habits. This is a possibility, however it could cause the workplace to become a dangerous or inefficient environment to work in, as employees would not necessarily be able to hear fire or other alarms, telephones or other employees talking.

In 1972 Fox and Embrey conducted four experiments to determine whether efficiency in completing tasks was affected by background music, or a lack of. These experiments were conducted on employees working on an assembly line, however their findings can be adapted to almost any line of work. The four experiments were based around the workers completing certain tasks in a specified amount of time, with different styles of music being played in the background. Their findings suggested that music can improve efficiency in repetitive tasks. They also concluded that any music that is played should be “lively and upbeat”, and the length and scheduling of the music is important. That is that some of the experiments involved the music being played in intervals rather than continuously. This gave results that suggested that this was the best way to improve the efficiency.

The alternative to each individual having headphones to listen to music, is that music is played around the workplace. As Henthorn (nd) states “Music should not be so low that you have to strain to hear it nor so high that it demands your attention”. The wrong volume level, either too high or too low, and the work efficiency will drop. The employer needs the volume level to be perfectly balanced to get the most from their employees. This could possibly raise a whole new issue of discrimination against the hard of hearing, but that is a whole other topic that will not be elaborated on in this essay. Another problem for the employer is what

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