Require headphones for music and phone calls in the office

Claire Feinberg
Template author
Organizer, designer, political staffer.

Template demand letter

Demand Letters outline the problem you are seeking to address with your campaign. Once demand letters obtain enough signatures, you can use this platform to send them to decision makers at your company, protecting your anonymity.

About the template

Implement a noise policy in your communal office that works for all coworkers.

About the author

Claire is an organizer and designer based in Chicago. In the past year and a half she's worked on a mayoral, congressional and presidential race where she helped unionize a top-tier presidential campaign. She believes collective action leads to more informed citizens and a healthier society.

To:[management@company.com]

Context

We’ve recently noticed an increase in noise complaints in our open office. Most of these complaints have centered around loud phone calls and/or music and videos being played without the use of headphones. This is leading to frustration among our colleagues and reduced concentration for all of us. In order to mitigate these complaints we propose implementing a headphone requirement for all music, video, and phone calls during normal work hours. Any music or videos played or phone calls taken in the communal office space shared by other employees at [Company] should require headphones. If we adopt this policy, it will satisfy the needs of both the people who want to listen to music while they work and those who do not.

Reasoning

Noise levels affect us all differently, but research has found that the majority of people work best in silence. Silent work conditions are difficult to attain in the modern office, but we can start reducing our volume levels by being respectful of the noise we make. We hope that by striving for a quieter office, everyone will have a chance to be their most productive.

We are requesting:

  • Strict headphone policy for music/videos and non-work phone conversations, implemented within one week
  • An added expectation that work phone calls that last longer than a few minutes be taken outside the communal office space.
  • A survey circulated by management to gauge employee interest in adopting “quiet hours” in the workplace (dedicated time in the office where conversations and phone calls are kept to a minimum)

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