Music hits the right notes for business success

While listening to music in the office is a pleasure, research* commissioned by MusicWorks has proved that it can also be a success with workers’ productivity.

Scientific research has revealed that listening to music in the workplace can be a success and improve the speed and accuracy of tasks such as data entry, proofreading and problem-solving skills.

In an office-based experiment, 88% of participants were found to produce their most accurate test results when listening to one of four musical genres.

When listening to a selection of different genres, classical music was found to be the most effective for improving the accuracy of tasks and resolving every-day mathematical problems, with participants achieving a 73% pass rate. When listening to pop music, 58% of participants completed data entry tasks much faster. When proof-reading, dance music had the most positive impact, with participants increasing their speed by 20% compared to proof-reading tests undertaken with no music at all. Dance music also had a positive effect on spell-checking, with a 75% pass rate, compared to 68% when no music was played at all. Watch the video to see what the participants thought of listening to music during their tests and how the benefits could be applied to a workplace.

“The MusicWorks experiment revealed a positive correlation between music and productivity – overall it showed that when listening to music, 9 out of ten people performed better. Music is an incredibly powerful management tool in increasing the efficiency of a workforce. It can exert a highly beneficial influence over employee morale and motivation, helping enhance output and even boosting a company’s bottom line.”

Neuropsychologist Dr David Lewis (founder and Chairman Mindlab International)

• 88% of people work most accurately when listening to one of four music genres*
• 58% of people worked faster when spell checking and entering data when listening to pop music*

*The experiment required 26 participants to undertake a series of on-line tasks 5 days in a row. The tasks were slightly different each day, but always included spell checking, equation solving, maths word problems, data entry and abstract reasoning tasks. Each day participants were either asked to listen to a playlist as background music (genres: dance, ambient, classical and pop) or not listen to music.