Help your customers understand why workplace noise affects productivity and profitability. And how they can fix it.

Today, work happens everywhere — in busy open-plan offices and contact centers, at home, even coffee shops. This flexibility is great for business and people, but with it comes a new challenge: noise. Distraction caused by noise reduces productivity and well-being and, in contact centers, detracts from a positive customer experience.

Studies show that it takes 23 minutes to recover from distraction, and over 58% of employees are distracted multiple times each day. That represents a significant impact on your customers’ businesses you can easily help avert through proven noise reduction strategies and products.

Plantronics engineers solutions that help people manage the noise around them so they can be more effective — no matter where they work. Together, we can help your customers reduce distractions caused by noise so their businesses can thrive.

Plantronics in South Africa offers several solutions for managing noise. This week we focus on the Voyager 6200 UC, a Bluetooth® neckband headset with earbuds that offers professional-grade audio and versatility. 

On any given day, you might need to collaborate with colleagues remotely, field calls from customers or listen to music to help you focus on your latest project. Now there’s a headset that’s flexible enough to meet the demands of your role inside the office and out. Voyager 6200 UC offers everything you’d expect from Plantronics — active-noise canceling, clear voice transmission and premium audio — in a versatile Bluetooth® neckband headset with earbuds. Intuitive controls make it easy to use, and the neckband vibrates to signal an incoming call. Voyager 6200 UC is so comfortable and low-profile that you can use it all day long, in the office and on the go. 

IT Managers

The professionals in your organization have different roles, responsibilities and work styles, so why offer them all the same headset? Now you don’t have to. New from Plantronics, Voyager 6200 UC is the first Bluetooth® neckband headset with earbuds built to enterprise standards. With its premium audio and versatility, users will want to wear it — and stay connected — everywhere they go.

Flexible Workers

With premium features and professional-grade audio, Voyager 6200 UC is a Bluetooth® neckband headset with earbuds that has the versatility to go beyond the office. Transitioning to your next conversation is easy: Connect with colleagues working remotely, listen to music to focus distraction-free or drop an earbud to tune in to the conversation around you. You can count on Voyager 6200 UC for outstanding audio every time, everywhere.

Hear and be heard clearly with these features:

• On-demand active- and passive-noise canceling let you focus on your call or work.
• Four omnidirectional microphones with enhanced digital signal processing (DSP) deliver superior background noise canceling.
• Premium hi-fi stereo lets you immerse yourself in your favorite music.
• Wide band audio provides high-quality PC telephony.

About Plantronics

Plantronics is an audio pioneer and a global leader in the communications industry. We create intelligent and adaptive solutions that support our customers’ most important needs: experiencing and facilitating simple and clear communications while enjoying distraction-free environments. Our solutions are used worldwide by consumers and businesses alike and are an optimal choice for open office environments. From unified communications and customer service ecosystems, to data analytics and Bluetooth® headsets, Plantronics delivers high-quality communications solutions that our customers count on today, while relentlessly innovating on behalf of their future. For more information visit www.plantronics.com/za 

©2018 Plantronics, Inc. Plantronics, SoundGuard, aptX and Voyager are trademarks of Plantronics, Inc. registered in the US and other countries, and Plantronics Hub is a trademark of Plantronics, Inc. The Bluetooth trademark is owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of the mark by Plantronics, Inc. is under license. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 01.18

1 Oxford Economics, “When the walls come down – the evolution of the workplace.”
2 Plantronics Noise in the Workplace Global Study, 2017.
3 The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress Study from the Department of Informatics, University of California, Irvine, 2008.

What's all of this that we have been hearing about Active Noise Cancelling? It is not new, but more business owners are connecting the dots about the terminology that aligns to the technology already being used every single day in business centers across the globe. Below is excerpt from a simple, informative article written by one of our global directors, Frank Timmermans, and it certainly applies to technology readily available in the South African region. 

"Silence sometimes feels like a warm bath. Spending time alone works wonders for your concentration, productivity and the quality of your conversations. But finding peace and quiet in the hectic environment of a busy open-plan office space seems to be extremely difficult because there’s always some form of background noise. Luckily many headset suppliers have found a solution for this: noise cancelling.

What is noise cancelling?

To start off: by noise we mean external sounds that don't come from the headset. Just think of buzzing appliances at the office, talking colleagues, traffic noise, ringing telephones and noises from incoming app messages and reminders for meetings. Noise cancelling technology is the method for reducing these undesired sounds. There are two forms: active and passive. Passive noise cancelling actually means nothing more than a good seal. You’re probably familiar with the malleable foam earplugs and hearing protection that road workers use. These are examples of passive noise cancelling. Headsets with this function work in the same way, they make sure that the ear is well sealed.

Active noise cancelling (ANC) on the other hand, is much more advanced. It works by adding sound to the sound coming from your headset. Contrary to what you might expect, this ends disturbing background noise.

How does it work?

Sound is vibrating air and it moves in waves. These waves of sound have an amplitude (which determines the volume) and a frequency (which determines the pitch). Think for example of the constant buzzing noise that comes from a plane engine which moves like the blue line.If you run precisely the opposite sound wave (anti-noise – the orange line) through an existing sound wave, you’re left with silence. This physical process is known as destructive interference. And this is exactly what headphones with ANC use. They are fitted with both a microphone that records ambient noise and the technology that ‘turns around’ these sound waves. These reversed waves are then added to the sound that comes out of the speakers in your headphones, and voilà: ambient noise disappears for the user. 

Noise cancelling in the microphone

The ANC technology not only ensures that you can work in your own bubble of silence. The person you’re talking to can also take advantage of it, by implementing the technology in the microphone of a headset. For the best sound, several omni-directional microphones are built into our newest products. Each microphone calculates where the sound of your voice comes from and focuses on that point in space. In this way the headset can already ‘ignore’ a lot of irrelevant background noise. In addition, the headset also lays several digital filters over the sound: one algorithm detects non-stationary sound like speaking colleagues, and another algorithm checks whether there are stationary sounds like buzzing printers or the air-conditioning. All of this combined means that it feels just like you’re alone in the office, wherever you are!

Why is ANC so great in a headset?

Noise in the workplace is not only the biggest enemy of efficiency, it’s also really bad for your health. So it’s no surprise that headsets with noise cancelling functionalities are popular in the workplace. We now have four different ANC products in our portfolio. This is our way of contributing to the whole world’s productivity!" You can view a demonstration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpgOVTtn0eQ 

Noise and managing it in the workplace is a popular topic which we will discuss across the South African region over the coming months. Including technology options within business strategies for helping workers have clear conversations is certainly something to consider, amongst other ideas for adapting to modern work styles. To read more about products available in South Africa which are strong ANC contenders for helping office workers, visit https://www.plantronics.com/za/en/category/office-worker 

About Plantronics

Plantronics is an audio pioneer and a global leader in the communications industry. We create intelligent and adaptive solutions that support our customers’ most important needs: experiencing and facilitating simple and clear communications while enjoying distraction-free environments. Our solutions are used worldwide by consumers and businesses alike and are an optimal choice for open office environments. From unified communications and customer service ecosystems, to data analytics and Bluetooth headsets, Plantronics delivers high-quality communications solutions that our customers count on today, while relentlessly innovating on behalf of their future. For more information or to find authorized distributors in South Africa, visit https://www.plantronics.com/za/