Associations between job satisfaction, job characteristics, and acoustic environment in open-plan offices

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd This study aimed to investigate the associations between physical acoustic factors, job characteristics, and job satisfaction. Acoustic measurements and questionnaire surveys were conducted in 12 open-plan offices. Active noise levels (LAeq,8-hour), reverberation time (T20), and speech privacy-related measures such as D2,S and Lp,A,S,4m were measured at each office. A total of 324 employees then completed the online questionnaire surveys. The questionnaire assessed perceived speech privacy, noise disturbance, job characteristics, and job satisfaction. The measures of job characteristics involved skill variety, task identity, task significance, and autonomy. The results showed that active noise level (LAeq,8-hour) was negatively correlated with job satisfaction. Also, job satisfaction showed a negative correlation with speech privacy, whereas the relationship between job satisfaction and noise disturbance was not significant. It was also observed that the relationship between task identity and job satisfaction was moderated by the active noise level and speech privacy.