Music was playing in development areas back in 2009 when I joined, nothing much has changed.
Neither has the law. Presumably there are more than 8 people at your site? So if *ANYONE* is playing through speakers, you *HAVE* to have a licence for the site. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, nor is "that's how its always been".
Sounds like BT are in the dark ages, especially if scanning for mp3's who uses them anymore and to block everything?
If you block streaming, then you have to have music files of some description.
Really don't like view point of headphones banned, it's a bit dictator-ish.
Headphones aren't banned at our place - we usually have headsets on all day for pointless calls. But having headphones on listening to music is simply pig ignorant IMHO, hence the Nerf gun... ...and I'm a bloody good shot - I usually go for the drink, just as they lift it towards their mouth. Why bother coming into the office if you are not going to participate.
Why spend huge reasonable amounts of effort to stop people doing something?
Make it just difficult enough that it reminds employees what the rules are, and they have to actively circumvent it makes it easy to give them the heave-ho
As long as the work gets done, that's what matters. If team want some tunes on, either via speakers or headphones. Or get some beers in for lunch or work from home, totally flexible. Happy team, means a productive team. Could be why my team of 12 has delivered something in 5 months, we expected to take 7.
(Drink is absolutely banned on any of our sites, even if you've just popped to Tescos to get some personal shopping, and carried it in the office). I agree with "if the work gets done", but study after study shows collaboration works better (sadly, as it doesn't work in my favour).
I can't grumble at my company's flexibility - its well known here that I have only been in my office about 5 days in the last 7 months, and mostly been WFH. This is mostly because of the (secret) project I've been on (the one they said couldn't be achieved in less than 12 months, but we did in 7
) meant I was pretty much working on my own, so I avoided a lot of the interruptions.
However, things like WFH here are mostly at the discretion on your immediate management - companywide, too many people take the piss, and think WFH means just answering the phone when it rings, and react to email, rather than working. This frustrates the hell out of me, as I value that privilege of WFH as and when I please, but if the majority take the piss, it will get banned. The same with flexible hours I'm allowed - if too many of the lazy bastards take the piss, it will become a strictly 9-5 hours, which means I will have to commute in rush hour.
You will learn that slowly your people will start to view privileges as rights, and that's when it starts to fall apart.