Should you allow employees to wear headphones at work?

Health and safety

Let’s start at the most important place, the health and safety of you and your team.

Headphones should not be used if an individual is operating any sort of equipment that, if used incorrectly, could cause harm.

In this article, we’re focusing on office environments where the majority of work is done on a computer from a desk, not busy warehouses or shops where customer interactions make up a core element of the job. In both these instances, headphones should simply not be permitted.

However, even in a relatively safe place such as an office, if you decide to allow the use of headphones, you should ensure that the wearer removes these if they are going to be alone in the office for any period of time, just in case a fire alarm goes off. Likewise, you should encourage headphone users to remove them when moving around the office, to help prevent accidents.

Listening to music

There will be people on your team who are at their most productive when they are listening to music. Provided that they are getting their work done to the level that you would expect, and the music isn’t loud enough to be audible outside of their headphones and so impacting other members of your team, you should consider allowing them to continue to listen to music – for certain periods of time at least.

If the team member isn’t performing to an adequate standard, you should discuss this with them. Whilst their poor performance might not have anything to do with the music that they are listening to (it’s more likely to be a motivational or training issue), you may wish to talk about their persistent use of headphones, and ask them if they think it may be affecting their work.

Instrumental music, and music without lyrics, can often help with focus. However, your employee may be listening to music with lyrics, or a podcast, which is having a detrimental effect on their ability to concentrate. Chat with them about this and suggest going headphone-free for a while, or at least listening to something more appropriate for work.

As an alternative to individuals all listening to their own selection of music, you could introduce an office music system, whereby you (or a trusted team member) compile a playlist made up of appropriate music. You could even curate the music depending on the time of the week. For example, earlier in the week you play more ambient music that helps individuals focus, whereas, at the latter end of the week, your music choice is more upbeat and motivational.

Of course, whilst this could have a morale-boosting effect, you can’t please everyone when it comes to music, and you may end up negatively impacting some team members’ ability to focus. So, implementing an office music system very much comes down to your judgement.

Headphones and the signals they send

Moving away from how headphones and what they’re playing can increase or reduce concentration, it’s also important to look at the impression someone gives just by wearing them. Again, this can be a positive or a negative.

If a person has an important piece of work to do and requires quiet, wearing headphones, as well as removing distracting noise, is a simple way of saying, “I’m busy, please leave me alone for the moment”. Headphones should be encouraged in instances such as this.

On the other hand, by wearing headphones all the time, someone is cutting themselves off from the rest of the office. This means they are not partaking in important work discussions (or making life that much harder for people who do need to speak to them) and missing out on more informal chats that play a part in building company culture. In this scenario, we suggest that you set out when headphones are not appropriate.