Professional Documents
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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?
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.
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.