Pearce and Hinds share important insights on effective transitions to open office environments. Their research focuses on employee place identity, which they define as “whether employees feel the space aligns with their self-image and enhances their sense of belonging.” The researchers found, after talking with workers in the United States, France, Israel, India and China, that “employees who felt a greater sense of place identity…experienced the space [a new open office] as more collaborative, social, flexible, energetic, and comfortable, while those who didn’t develop place identity saw the space as noisy and cluttered. Workers who felt a greater personal connection to the space were also more engaged and enthusiastic about their work, believed their communication with colleagues and managers was of higher quality, and felt a greater attachment to the organization.”
To build place identity, Pearce and Hinds recommend that the purpose of a new office space design be shared with users prior to moving into the new space, when employees “believed the space was designed to foster creativity, increase collaboration, enhance flexibility, and promote informal communication [workers] had more place identity…when workers were not prepared with a clear vision of the space beforehand, they were more likely to perceive the space as a way to cut costs and expressed more resistance and dissatisfaction.” To enhance place identity leaders should be positive about the new space and employees should be allowed to customize it, with personal items and by rearranging furniture, for example. With positive leaders and customization, workers voiced more upbeat opinions about concrete aspects of the environment such as its lighting and noise levels.
Brandi Pearce and Pamela Hinds. 2018. “How to Make Sure People Won’t Hate Your New Open Office Plan.” Harvard Business Review (online), https://hbr.org/2018/01/sgc-research-when-moving-to-an-open-office-plan-pay-attention-to-how-your-employees-feel?referral=03758&cm_vc=rr_item_page.top_right.
Sally Augustin, PhD,a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.