MSc research - how does your office affect productivity?

[torqueofthedevil]

I am currently carrying out some research into the effect of office design on worker's productivity and motivation.

If you work in an office environment please could you take 1 minute to complete my survey? It doesn't ask for any personal information.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Officedesign1

Thanks

[parabolica]

Done. Interesting survey as 30 of us from all different functions of the business have just been moved into a temporary office which has resulted in unexpected pros and cons.

[torqueofthedevil]

Yes it is an interesting area of research - when businesses are building new office spaces they can spend a lot of money on these sorts of considerations. During the construction, many businesses are keen for their buildings to be scored under a scheme which rates the sustainability of that building. Obviously these schemes consider environmental factors, but they also looks at the effect on society, such as worker health and wellbeing. I am trying to establish how much of an effect the various office design elements have on worker productivity.

I work in a lot of temporary office space that has had little thought to the occupants health or wellbeing - quite interesting to see how much importance is placed on office design though.

[rog007]

Done. But...

As I'm sure you're aware from your literature review, this has already been done and the question has been answered (it does matter and it does have an effect). Therefore, what new angle are you looking at or what is the new question you're trying to answer? It's an area I'm interested in so I am genuinely interested in any research if it adds new insights in to the already large body of evidence available.

Thanks; and good luck!

[torqueofthedevil]

rog007 said:

Done. But...

As I'm sure you're aware from your literature review, this has already been done and the question has been answered (it does matter and it does have an effect). Therefore, what new angle are you looking at or what is the new question you're trying to answer? It's an area I'm interested in so I am genuinely interested in any research if it adds new insights in to the already large body of evidence available.

Thanks; and good luck!

Thanks for completing the questionnaire and for your message. Yes there is a lot of existing research which I have had a fairly good read of. If you know of any particular journals / research however, then please let me know! This survey only forms part of my research. My dissertation aims to establish if constructing building projects under the BREEAM scheme is commercially beneficial for building owners. For some of the issues such as, for example, generating 10% of energy using renewables, it is fairly easy to find the cost of the system and the costs / savings which generates over its life cycle.

For some of the other issues concentrating more on social elements, such as providing cycling facilities, or view out of a window, it is more difficult to measure the commercial return that this would give to a building owner. For me doing Masters level research, I don't have the resources to actually measure the effect on performance of each, for this I am using existing research as you say. My questionnaire therefore aims to see which of the BREEAM issues people think are the most relevant to their productivity. From this I can then say which are most worth doing.

[arnie12]

Done, I would be very interested to hear the outcome to this.

[drdel]

Since I see you're doing an MSc rather than an MA where an essay type Thesis will usually be enough I wonder how you intend to get the scientific analysis into the guts of your study - especially when you are entering into the subjective arena of 'social' well being and 'good' feelings often addressed by the rather wishy washy 'grounded theory' methodology and dubious statistical all-by-all tabulations.

Can't you take advantage of the admin. staff in your own college? - you would be able to photograph the different office layouts, views and functions to at least collate and analyse some sort of scoring system.

While Forum members will help how will you classify the respondents because, as with all voluntary responses, its a skewed result!

Kodak conducted numerous studies way back in the '80s around the 'office': paint colours, ergonomics of desks and lighting etc.

Some Trade Unions have also sponsored research.

[torqueofthedevil]

Thanks to everyone who helped out and completed the survey. I have had around 80 responses so it would be great to get it over the 100 mark if anyone hasn't already completed it.

Its averaging at less than 2 minutes to complete so nothing too long-winded.

I will post the results once I have analysed the data.

Cheers.

[L555BAT]

Just about to submit now, some additional things that came to mind while filling it:

Our office is daylit, but people have wildly differing preferences when it comes to how much daylight they want. Usually the people who want the blinds closed have their way, and maybe 75% of the glass area remains blocked off by blinds.

Our building (as well as many others from what I understand), has an always-on-all-the time boiler because that's more efficient. It's then up to the chilling units to balance out the excess heat. I would question the net efficiency of the combined system.

A university I know of has glass building without air con. It has moveable external panels to shut out sunlight. It doesn't work, so in the summer all the staff work from home most of the time.

People always disagree on what the temperature should be. People wearing jumpers complain that it's hot, others wearing shirts complain that it's cold.

Some people sit in the line of air exits, so they're always too cold.

Open plan office, far too noisy (talking, phones, noisy typers). If most people in an office space are wearing headphones, what does that tell you?

I don't cycle to work, because there are 3 showers between 500 people.

Having shops etc. near is nice even if you don't want to buy things. It's nice to be able to "leave work" properly during lunchtime.

Parking spaces - I use the train. But we only have a few parking spaces, and the permission given to some to use them but not others is a cause of grievances.

[torqueofthedevil]

L555BAT said:

Just about to submit now, some additional things that came to mind while filling it:

Our office is daylit, but people have wildly differing preferences when it comes to how much daylight they want. Usually the people who want the blinds closed have their way, and maybe 75% of the glass area remains blocked off by blinds.

Our building (as well as many others from what I understand), has an always-on-all-the time boiler because that's more efficient. It's then up to the chilling units to balance out the excess heat. I would question the net efficiency of the combined system.

A university I know of has glass building without air con. It has moveable external panels to shut out sunlight. It doesn't work, so in the summer all the staff work from home most of the time.

People always disagree on what the temperature should be. People wearing jumpers complain that it's hot, others wearing shirts complain that it's cold.

Some people sit in the line of air exits, so they're always too cold.

Open plan office, far too noisy (talking, phones, noisy typers). If most people in an office space are wearing headphones, what does that tell you?

I don't cycle to work, because there are 3 showers between 500 people.

Having shops etc. near is nice even if you don't want to buy things. It's nice to be able to "leave work" properly during lunchtime.

Parking spaces - I use the train. But we only have a few parking spaces, and the permission given to some to use them but not others is a cause of grievances.

Some interesting and useful points there - cheers

[Wall05]

Done - interesting survey. Always a trade off amongst the criteria I expect though!