Positive Workplace Design: Research- and Practice-Based Insights

Sally Augustin PhD, Design with Science
Ellen Bruce Keable Assoc. AIA, Prosci, Jacobs, Amherst, NY
Cynthia Milota FMP, LEED AP, MA, Ware Macomb, IL
Christine Kohlert Ph.D, Professor, Professor at Media Design University, Munich, Germany
Gabor Nagy Ph.D. MCR, Haworth, San Francisco, CA
Sheila Gobes-Ryan Ph.D., University of South Florida

Learning Objectives:

• Discover the attributes of workplaces where people work to their full potential
• Learn about the most recent and applicable workplace design related research being done by academics and practitioners
• Understand how research can be applied in practice
• Identify the opportunities and challenges of future workplace design

Session Abstract:

Workplace design that recognizes, reflects, and respects the factors that support employee efforts to perform to their full potential is becoming increasingly important as marketplaces of all types become more competitive worldwide. Researchers benefit from becoming more familiar with practitioner endeavors to develop workplaces that support employee efforts and practitioners, likewise, can find their work elevated via knowledge of researcher efforts. The sessions in this Intensive integrate insights gleaned from both research and practice to create a workplace design model that can ultimately be used to enhance the professional performance of workers and the organizations that employ them. Individual sessions will present important components of the model, which will be carefully reviewed in straightforward language during Augustin's interactive session.

Both/and Thinking As a Design Approach to Workplace Research

Ellen Bruce Keable

Recent research by Leesman (2018), past research by BOSTI Associates (1985; 2001), and much work in between concur that people need workplace support for BOTH focused concentration AND spontaneous interaction. Good workplace design embraces both, inspired by dynamic flows in how people work and use places when given choices and control. Yet much research and writing about workplace design focus on physical attributes such as openness, enclosure, interaction, and privacy as if they exist separate from and in competition with each other. We also do this with people-- creating typologies for job functions, personalities, and organizational cultures. Much effort is methodological--digging to measurable definitions and comparative analysis, but at the end of the day are the findings relevant to design actions? How reflective are they of actual worklife--and how useful are they for design? This session will explore the use of both/and thinking as an approach to workplace research that embraces the messiness of worklife, of decision-making, and of knowledge-driven design.

Why POEs Matter

Cynthia Milota

In this session we will take a brief step back to better understand post-occupancy evaluations and also look ahead to the future of post occupancy evaluations (POEs). Analyzing from the perspectives of academics, practitioners, and end users, we will explore who is conducting POEs, how the data are being used, technology's impact on POEs, and why POEs will matter in the future.

Studying Healthy Workplaces in the New Workplace World

Christine Kohlert

In a study financed by the ministry of education and research in Germany, workplace designs and organizational structures that enhance employee health were investigated. Data were collected in open space offices with open and closed areas for varying work tasks and work styles to answer the question "What offices structures enhance the health of the people working and living in them?"Data were analyzed to identify trends/patterns, a model integrating all findings was developed, and workplace designs were created based on that model. Insights were gained in the different perspectives workers have on open offices and organizational goals related to open offices. The investigation focused on success factors for workplace transitions and how stress can be reduced for employees during these periods to augment worker health. Information was gathered at 18 organizations via 55 interviews, and with an online survey with 840 participants.

Flexible Work Programs at Companies: A Longitudinal Quantitative Study Spanning a Decade

Gabor Nagy

In this session we will review a quantitative benchmarking study of flexible work programs, involving 130 companies representing over 2.3 million employees on six continents globally. This biennial study started during the 2008 recession, and now in its fifth period, it spans over a decade, serving invaluable data on how things have shifted over time. We will look at the types of flexible work programs offered and utilized, employee participation distributions, as well as length and formalization of programs. We will also reveal the business drivers, values and benefits of and barriers to flexible work, as well as important management policies and work practices. We will also discuss metrics for measuring success, as well as measures of employee productivity.

Technology Enabled New-Ways-of-Working and the Evolving Need for Workplaces

Sheila Gobes-Ryan

Organizations and their workers are using a wide array of information and communication technologies to connect for work. These technology-based ways of working are changing the way workers use organizational workspaces; they influence the drivers for being at those places, the regularity of their use of spaces, and the perceived important activities in workspaces. Workers at the forefront of these new-ways-of-working include teleworkers, mobile workers, and distributed teams; they are on the front lines of developing ways to work through information and communication technologies with and without co-location with coworkers. For this reason, their experiences can inform the design and management of workplaces and new ways to approach the planning, development, and use of workplaces. This presentation will begin with an analysis of the practices of full-time teleworkers and their organizational workplace needs. It will then present research on teleworker, mobile worker, and distributed worker work practices to examine their organizational space use needs. It will conclude with a summary of the drivers that bring these workers to the office, what kinds of activities they feel are best accomplished when physically together, and what kinds of spaces they need when they come to the office.

Linking Research Results and Practice Particulars: Designing What Knowledge Workers Need

Sally Augustin

For decades, researchers have been carefully investigating links between workplace design and how well people work. Their science-based work makes it clear that offices where knowledge workers perform to their full potential share four features. In these high performance places:

• Employees have a comfortable level of control over their physical environment.
  
• The silent messages sent via the design of the workplace make the employees feel good; spaces "say" the things about those workers that the employees want to "hear" and indicate that users are respected by their organization.
  
• The design of the workplace supports employees' efforts to do their jobs well; it aligns with their functional needs.
  
• The area provides opportunities for people to refresh mentally after they've become cognitively exhausted by doing knowledge work.
  

Recently completed research that supports and develops these four workplace design-related factors will be featured in this session. The presentation is designed to inform attending practitioners about important findings that they need to apply right away and provides researchers with the background they need to develop informed, powerful studies.