Hyvinvointi taustamusiikin kokemuksissa

Abstract

Well-being in background music experiences: views of service sector employees on working with music 
 Salespeople, waiters, security guards, and hotel workers hear an average of eight hours of music during their workday. In most cases, they do not get to choose the music themselves. According to companies providing and purchasing background music services for service sector workplaces and commercial spaces, the rationale behind its use is to increase sales. However, music is also a spatial element to ”work with”. In this article, we ask what it is like to work with music in service jobs and how employees see the contribution of music to well-being at work. Our material is a ”Background music in the workplace” questionnaire (747 answers) and a form interview material of employees of the Koskikeskus shopping center in Tampere, Finland (66 answers). Respondents report, among other things, whether they feel the music in the workspace is for a particular group of people; who chooses the music; and whether discussions and negotiations concerning music use take place, with other employees or with customers. We analyze the material, emphasizing the respondents’ statements about well-being as expressions of coping, well-being, strain, and satisfaction. We discuss the results with a qualitative study of the topic that emphasizes music as a social and spatial element in the sales situation (Payne et al 2017, Kontukoski & Uimonen 2019). Our data shows that well-being at work and perceived musical agency interact. Occupational well-being plays an important role in looking specifically at work-related well-being and background music. The workspace changes the meanings of music to those of professionality, rendering the employees’ personal relationships to music secondary.