What do workplace studies say about workspace choice?
A NewWOW member posted a study he co-authored on workplace environment and performance. It explored how distractions, workspace flexibility, and personal control of work environment influences perceived job performance, job satisfaction, group cohesiveness, and the tendency to work alone or in an enclosed area. The study prompted a spirited discussion among members.
An excerpt:
- Question: Have you done any studies of situations where a variety of individual space options has been provided: how are the spaces used, what are people's tendencies to use a variety of spaces rather than settle into a single space, etc.
Answer: I think that at least we could hypothesize that just providing a variety of spaces without understanding some of the issues that you raised (why just this set of spaces is needed; why just this variety of spaces is needed; why they're located & configured the way they are; how people will use each of the spaces) results in wasted real estate and a waste of design resources & investment.
Comment: My work suggests that the idea of a choice of spaces works well functionally, that is, as a support for work. But people need a big nudge to get them to accept it. Until recently the choice of locations was limited by inflexible technology but as more companies go wireless and everyone has pagers or blackberries this can no longer be used as an excuse. The challenge I believe is a psychic one: how can people learn to see the whole space (floor, building, campus, whatever) as their 'own' territory, when they are used to identifying a personal workspace as 'their own'.
Comment: The best workplace space I experienced was an early pilot for our own organization. It consisted of a nice balance of cubes (with pairs open to each other), small private space for individual work, larger private space for individual work plus small meetings, and meeting space. It was a space that served about 30 people with about 20 seats plus conference rooms.
Comment: In our company [based in Europe], employees tend to build a "comfort zone." The zone can be either a single person bubble or it may be a team or a larger group of people in a space who resist all the changes in their environment but also all the changes in the way they work. … Change is something that most of us naturally resist. But changing is a process that you can´t stop if you want to be in businesses today. You just need to find the right incentives: effectiveness, innovations, new people around, new furniture, etc.
Comment: My first thought in this kind of a situation is to NOT "move" people in the sense that they lose their partial "ownership" of the place they find valuable. Instead, create a new kind of workplace that would be also available to all. This could be a drop-in or satellite location located to significantly reduce commute times (if that is a problem), and/or enable working from home some of the time and making that a formal part of work arrangement for some.
Comment: I think it's important to understand the psychology behind these employees' current reluctance to change. Is it a case of "misery loves company" and they're afraid that change may result in something even worse than what they have now? I believe that most "corporate changes"--at least those related to CRE and FM--involve a loss of privacy, a loss of space, a loss of storage, a loss of enclosure; these changes usually result in a perceived loss of personal control and a perceived loss of status and importance to the organization. These may be erroneous perceptions, but they're very real to employees.
For access to the entire conversation, see http://www.newwow.net/members/node/162
