Employees Love to Listen to Music While They Work [POLL RESULTS]
A few weeks ago, I asked you for your thoughts on listening to music while you work. Well, I had no idea how popular and passionate the responses would be! It’s taken me a while to organize the responses, but I think you’ll find them quite interesting (and fun!)
As the title of this post implies, there’s no middle ground here. Respondents say, “Heck yea!” employees should be able to listen to music while they’re working. Enough said.
What was interesting was the follow-up question about what people listen to. The responses fell into three categories: 1) genre or type of music, 2) bands or singers, and finally 3) songs.
There’s Something to the Phrase “Mood Music”
Some individuals responded with the genre or type of music. The most common response by far was “it varies”. Happy songs for happy days. Or maybe happy songs for bad days. Either way, mood impacted music choice.
A lot of people also commented that they listen to music without lyrics – instrumentals, classical, white noise, or “spa-type” music. Several readers said that words could distract them, and I can totally see that.
I was surprised at the number of people who have put together their own work station or mix tape. I have my own stations for “cleaning out the garage” and “treadmill desking” but I might have to try this. Especially with some of the suggestions you offered … which leads to the next point.
There’s a Reason They’re Called Classic
Many of the Individuals who responded with the names of singers or bands offered up the names of music icons (regardless of the genre): Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, U2, and Led Zeppelin.
One person mentioned pianist Paul Cardall and said, “his music has the ability to be heard or somehow go mute as the workday necessitates”. I let you decide if you want to check out his music.
And two honorable mentions go to The Greatest Showman soundtrack and Ed Sheeran. Several mentions, although no specific songs…but that’s next.
Here’s Your Workday Playlist
While the songs people shared were all over the map, similar to the chart above about favorite work music, there were a few tunes that showed up multiple times. Here are the top five:
“Taking Care of Business” by Bachman Turner Overdrive
“Under Pressure” by Queen
“Working for the Weekend” by Loverboy
“Can’t Stop the Feeling” by Justin Timberlake
The number one song that people said they listen to at work?
“9 to 5” by Dolly Parton
This was a really fun survey to do and I hope you find the results fun as well. But I did learn a couple of business lessons. First, given how many people responded (more than 200) and the way they responded, music is a low-cost, no-cost perk that employees would love. And, I wonder if music could be built into meetings and trainings as an icebreaker activity. To quote Sean Combs, “Music is the most powerful form of communication in the world. It brings us all together. Even religion separates us, but a hit record unites us across religious beliefs, race, politics.” And maybe music can unite the business as well.
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