Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Freedom to Be – A Key Employee Workplace Perception

by Sally Augustin, Ph.D. | July 5th, 2021

Autonomy is one of the core motivations recognized by Self-Determination Theory –  humans need to feel that they have some control over what happens to them. As discussed previously here, a primary goal of design should be to give people a comfortable level of control over the physical environments in which they find themselves.  That means presenting them with a carefully curated set of 4 to 6 options that align with how a space is likely to be used, but not an infinite number of possible choices. Working from home, people have gotten accustomed to having lots of say over working conditions – there’s no one to battle with for control of the thermostat, for example, but returning to work in company offices will mean that people have fewer expectations about fine-tuning the environment to their individual desires. They will step back into the systems/rituals related to group control they …