Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Keep It Predictable

by Sally Augustin, Ph.D. | July 19th, 2021

This may seem like a good time to make every sort of change to the office spaces you design or manage that you’ve ever anticipated, and that the budget allows. For the most part people have been working away from the office for a while, giving us plenty of opportunities to re-design and re-do like mad, without concerns about disruptions to employee workdays.  The situation practically demands that we seize this time to remake workplaces. Resist!  Certainly make any changes required to combat disease spread, but don’t make more modifications than those required.  Your goal should be to ensure that the spaces workers return to seem familiar. A space that’s familiar is predictable and predictability reduces employee stress.  Employees returning to in-office work will be tense enough by returning to their commutes and all of the other aspects of daily living that used to boost their blood pressure even before …