Many of the workplace design related conversations currently taking place are focused on the biology of keeping people using offices from inadvertently killing each other via COVID-19 microbes. Designing offices to keep people alive is indeed very, very important; but offices can do so much more for us than help us fight off a pandemic.
Especially now, when so many people returning to onsite work are emotionally fragile, it’s important to remember the different ways that workplaces serve the people in them and the organizations that manage them.
In a classic article from 2007, Elsbach and Bechky outline three main functions of workplaces: instrumental, symbolic and aesthetic. Since 2007, new technologies for remote meeting and work have become available, but those technologies combined still cannot comprehensively replicate an onsite work experience.
Instrumental functions, as outlined by Elsbach and Bechky, are the sorts of things that first come to mind for many people considering “what a workplace does.” As Elsbach and Bechky describe, instrumental functions are those “that improve the performance (e.g., efficiency, quality, creativity) and satisfaction (e.g., comfort, willingness to remain with the organization of workers.” Symbolic functions “affect the cultures and identities of organizations, and identities and images of workers.” Finally, aesthetic functions “affect the sensory experiences of workers, including both cognitive and emotional responses to design and décor.”
Elsbach and Bechky talk about workplaces from their academic perspectives, and not as workplace design professionals generally do, but their work does hit at the core of the services that onsite workplaces provide. Workplaces help us get done whatever we need to get done, whatever we are paid to do, but that is just the most fundamental component of their functionality. Workplaces also satisfy core emotional needs of employees, comforting and linking workers to things that they value about themselves and others via thoughts and ideas. When workplaces signal that employee contributions to organization success are respected, because spaces and tools provided not only support professional success but also positive life experiences as goals are met (via boosts for mental and physical health and wellbeing and recognition of employees needs for cognitive and physical refreshment, for example), employees become particularly likely to be satisfied with their jobs and to excel at them.
As our workplaces move into a post-pandemic era, remembering and recognizing that workplaces can elevate our moods and sustain positive ones is important. Research consistently shows that when people are in a more positive mood they are better at problem solving, creative thinking, and getting along with others, for example. Thoughtful workplace design makes happy workers more likely, and happy workers add the most value to their employer’s bottom line and to their society.
Kimberly Elsbach and Beth Bechky. 2007. “It’s More Than a Desk: Working Smarter Through Leveraged Office Design.” California Management Review, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 80-101.
Sally Augustin, PhD, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com). Research Design Connections reports on research conducted by social and physical scientists that designers can apply in practice. Insights derived from recent studies are integrated with classic, still relevant findings in concise, powerful articles. Topics covered range from the cognitive, emotional, and physiological implications of sensory and other physical experiences to the alignment of culture, personality, and design, among others. Information, in everyday language, is shared in a monthly subscription newsletter, an archive of thousands of published articles, and a free daily blog. 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.