Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Yours, Mine, Ours, No One’s
As some organizations move to cut back on office space and with fewer in-workplace employee hours, there’s lots of discussion about moving from assigned to unassigned seating plans. From a psychological perspective, this is not a good idea. When people have an onsite workspace/territory that they own (particularly if they can personalize it to some extent, even minimally), research shows that their wellbeing and performance get a boost, they are more committed to their employing organization and are more satisfied with their jobs. Research also shows that workers themselves perceive that they are less productive in unassigned seating, which can encourage them to work elsewhere. Psychologists do not rule the universe, however, and no matter how great they feel about people having assigned seats, more and more seats are and will be unassigned. Assigning a seat to an employee for their individual use, whenever they are in the office, ratchets …
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