Most people often define noise simply as unwanted sound. Noise could make people annoyed, angered, frustrated and stressed, which could actually result in a variety of physiological and psychological issues. Noise affects many aspects in everyday living.

In the workplace, noise is regarded as a major stressor that often causes employee dissatisfaction, lack of productivity, and impaired hearing or hearing loss. In America, it has been discovered that millions of people are frequently exposed to hazardous levels of office noise because of the lack of noise treatment systems, with one out of every five working Americans developing impaired hearing. Firefighters, factory workers, construction workers, military personnel, farmers, heavy industry workers, musicians and entertainment industry professional are just some of the professions that have working environments that present dangerous levels of noise. Even office employees working in crowded office buildings where phones consistently ring and computers and air conditioners constantly hum in the background are faced with agitation and increased stress that noise creates.

As office noise pose various health risks to employees, companies today are now using a variety of solutions to avoid the hazards that noise exposure could bring, and one of these solutions is the use of white noise generator applications in the workplace. Such a device typically produces low-level background sounds that could cover foreign sounds within the immediate environment. Machines and devices that are regarded as white noise producers do not necessarily produce genuine white noise, which can be harsh to the ears, rather they are designed to play sounds that are often heard in nature like waterfalls, rains, or crashing waves.

Today, white noise devices are made by different manufacturers in an assortment of designs and uses. You can find white noise machines that are utilized as audio testing equipments, speech privacy systems, and sleep aid or power nap devices. Sleep aid and nap white noise machines are often used to achieve sleep as they are designed to produce soothing sounds that are combined with or modulated by white noise. They are also utilized to reduce the discomforts of tinnitus and migraines.

In the office, white noise generator units are utilized as sound masking machines to enhance privacy by drowning distant conversations. Suppose an employee is always bothered by the chatter and conversations coming from the cubicle next to the space he or she occupies; the employee could use a clock radio that has a white noise application to drown such distracting sounds. The use of white noise inside the office is proven effective in achieving acoustic satisfaction, especially for employees who work in open-plan offices that have no walls or doors, such as in individual cubicles.

Almost all white noise generator devices today are powered electronically. However, there are also simple mechanical machines that that involve an enclosed fan with a speed switch. The fan is what drives the air through the small slots in the machine's housing, which in turn is capable of masking other sounds. With these options at hand, there's no reason for your employees to endure workplace noise that could affect their productivity and satisfaction.