Should Employees Be Able to Listen to Music While They Work [poll]

Sharlyn Lauby

6 Jun 2019

Did you see the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Express Request on music and productivity? There’s quite a bit of research indicating that listening to music can help individuals be more productive. If you don’t have access to the SHRM site, here are a few articles on the issue:

The Science Backed Ways Music Affects Your Brain and Productivity

Enhance Focus with Productivity Music (Recommended Playlists)

Research Shows Listening to Music Increases Productivity (and Some Types of Music Are Super Effective)

The reason the articles caught my attention is because I like listening to tunes when I work. Especially when I travel. Just put on the headphones and start writing.

Now I will admit the type of songs I listen to has evolved over the years. I went through this phase where I would only listen to Mozart because I read somewhere about The Mozart Effect and that classical music is the perfect background sound at work. And no offense to my friends who love classical, but that didn’t cut it for me. I enjoy a wide variety so now I listen to the tunes I like.

But listening to music has not always been a part of my work routine. When I worked in hotels, we didn’t listen to music out of respect for the culinary team. As much as the cooks wanted to listen while they worked, the executive chef wouldn’t allow it for safety reasons. They didn’t want it to distract employees and create a situation where the employee could get burned or cut. Since the cooks didn’t listen to music, we didn’t listen to music.

I’m curious to know your thoughts. I’ve set up an anonymous survey – it should take less than 2 minutes– on Survey Monkey with just two questions:

Should employees be able to listen to music while they work?
What’s your favorite “work” song?

I think it would be fun to see what others are doing as well as put together a little “listen while you work” playlist (see what I did there? LOL!). Thanks for weighing in on this survey. I know we’ve done a few surveys lately and I appreciate your feedback. I know other readers do as well. Stay tuned to see the results!