Radio in the Workplace: Increasing Morale & Productivity

What relevance does music have for employers? Certainly at the basic level of demand there is a strong case to be discussed.

Recent research published on Music Works revealed that 71% of people in full-time employment want to be able to listen to music at work. That’s all very well but what value does background music offer an employer in terms of return on investment?

In 1998 Professors North and Hargeaves observed in their study ‘Employee’s Responses to Music in the Workplace’, that playing music that was liked by factory employees resulted in them returning a mood rating that was 20% higher than in a ‘no music’ state and 13% higher than in a ‘neutral music’ state.

The Music Works research conducted in 2009 reported a similar set of conclusions regarding the workplace productivity and found that 74% of workers said they enjoy going to work more when music they like is played. Furthermore, 85% of workers said that listening to music at work makes them much happier

The positive findings from these research studies are however predicated on the assumption that the music is broadly liked by the employees.  It is also important in this regard that the music is highly familiar. ‘Music for Business’, a study conducted by Entertainment Media Research in February 2008, found a strong correlation between familiarity and the impact of background music in the workplace.

In the study 1,500 respondents (weighted to be representative of UK demographics) were played 55 songs of varying familiarity. They were then presented with a list of attributes and behaviours relating to the effectiveness of music in the workplace. 

The findings (summarised below) firmly indicate that effectiveness is influenced by song familiarity. Employees have a greater love for familiar music, it makes them feel happier, creates a better atmosphere and, crucially, it encourages workplace productivity.

So how best to ensure that the music fits the workforce and generates the desired behaviour? One option is to consider radio. The immediate advantage of radio is that the majority of songs will normally be familiar; radio programmers know that unfamiliar songs can cause up to 30% of their audience to “tune out”. They therefore extensively research every song under consideration to ensure the song is liked by their target audience and is sufficiently familiar before adding it to the playlist.