Like many technology companies, zlien has an open floor plan at our company headquarters in New Orleans. It’s a nice-looking space with exposed brick walls, tall ceilings, lots of windows…and music playing from the time that the first person arrives in the morning until the last person leaves at the end of the work day. In other words, here at zlien we answered the question posed in the title of this article with a resounding “YES!”
Turn Up the Volume?
The rationale behind playing music at the office is pretty simple really — music helps to keep the energy level up, and that higher energy level then translates into higher productivity for the entire team.
The music isn’t too loud — just loud enough that you can hear it from anywhere you happen to be in the room. The volume level is probably a little bit louder than typical background music, but a lot softer than if you were cranking your favorite tune at home or in the car. There’s only one significant ground rule: nothing inappropriate can be played. People take turns making the playlists and selecting the songs, and everyone does a pretty good job picking out songs that are crowd pleasers.
[Side note: currently playing as I type this: “Freebird,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, a song that’s on a regular rotation here at the zlien office.]
Perhaps not surprisingly, the speaker is located in the middle of the area where the sales team sits. And while it definitely took some getting used to in the beginning, I’d say that overall, having the music on during the workday has been a welcomed addition by the folks that work here.
Download the Workin’ Hard (and Gettin’ Paid) Playlist
We’ve put together a Spotify playlist (above right) that we’d like to share with you. It contains 59 of the best songs we could find about a subject that we all share: working hard for a living! In keeping with our practice at the office, songs containing inappropriate lyrics have been left off of our list, but there’s still plenty of good stuff on there to listen to.
You may want to check with OSHA before playing music at the jobsite, but as far as we can tell, music in the office is perfectly inline with OSHA’s rules and regulations.
We’d also love to hear your song suggestions for our playlist. Please send them our way by commenting on this post (below). Enjoy the playlist, and thank you!
Leave a Reply