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Designing your own workspacehealth, happiness anc

One ofthe study

participantsgets to

work in an'enriched'

office

Employees who havecontrol over the designand layout of their

workspace are not onlyhappier and healthier -they're also up to 32% moreproductive, according to newresearch from the Universityof Exeter.

Studies by the University'sSchool of Psychology haverevealed the potential forremarkable improvementsin workers' attitudes totheir jobs by allowing themto personalise their offices.The findings challenge theconventional approach takenby most companies, wheremanagers often create a'lean' working environmentthat reflects a standardisedcorporate identity.

Dr Craig Knight conductedthe research as part of hisPhD and is now directorof PRISM, a company thatdeals with space issues in the

workplace. "When peoplefeel uncomfortable in theirsurroundings they are lessengaged - not only with thespace but also with what theydo in it. If they can have somecontrol, that all changes and

people report being happierat work, identifying more withtheir employer, and beingmore efficient when doingtheir jobs."

The research involved morethan 2000 office workers in

a series of studies looking atattitudes to - and productivitywithin - working space. Thisincluded two surveys ofworkers' attitudes carried outvia online questionnaires, aswell as two experiments whichexamined workers' efficiencywhen carrying out tasks underdifferent conditions.

The surveys assessed thelevel of control that workershad over their space - rangingfrom none at all to beingfully consulted over designchanges. Workers were thenasked a series of questionsabout how they felt abouttheir workspace and theirjobs.

Results consistently showedthat the more control peoplehad over their office spaces,the happier and moremotivated they were in theirjobs. They felt physicallymore comfortable at work,identified more with theiremployers, and felt more

Anotherparticipanttries to geton with thetasks in alean office

NewsManagement Services 7

m proves

productivitypositive about their jobs ingeneral.

Two further studies, one atthe University and anotherin commercial offices, sawparticipants take on a seriesof tasks in a workspacethat was either lean (bareand functional), enriched(decorated with plantsand pictures), empowered(allowing the individualto design the area) ordisempowered (where theindividual's design wasredesigned by a 'manager').

People working in enrichedspaces were 17% moreproductive than those in lean

spaces, but those sitting atempowered desks were evenmore efficient - being 32%more productive than theirlean counterparts, withoutany increase in errors.

Professor Alex Haslam, whoco-authored the research,said it was time for managersto recognise the potentialimprovements that can bemade by handing somecontrol of space over toworkers and thereby givingthem an opportunity to realisetheir own identity in theworkplace.

He said: "Not only doesoffice design determine

whether people's backs ache,it has the potential to affecthow much they accomplish,how much initiative they take,and their overall professionalsatisfaction. Further researchthat we and others havecarried out also highlightsstrong links between a lack ofcontrol over workspace andsickness in the office.

"All this could have a hugeimpact for firms of any size,yet employers rarely consider

the psychological ramificationsof the way they managespace. By paying moreattention to employees' needsthey can boost wellbeing andproductivity at minimal cost."

The research was carriedout with the help of Ambius,a firm which specialises inproviding services to enrichworkspaces for businesses,supported by the Economicand Social Research Council(ESRC).

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largestorganisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It supportsindependent, high-quality research which has an impact on business, thepublic sector and the third sector. The ESRC's total expenditure in 2009/10was about £211 million. At any one time the ESRC supports more than4000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions andindependent research institutes.

The work of Craig Knight and Alex Haslam is published in two researchpapers. Your Place or Mine? Organizational Identification and Comfort asMediators of Relationships Between the Managerial Control of Workspaceand Employees' Satisfaction and Well-being, published in the British Journalof Management.

The Relative Merits of Lean, Enriched, and Empowered Offices: AnExperimental Examination of the Impact of Workspace ManagementStrategies on Well-Being and Productivity is published in the Journal ofExperimental Psychology: Applied.

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