As anyone in the design or commercial space management world knows, responses to physical environments are rarely entirely objective. Sometimes perceptions of what’s experienced are more aligned with reality (however you wish to define “reality”) than others, but there’s always some subjectivity.
Neuroscience studies make it clear that one of the factors that influences our perception of our physical environment is our wellbeing, at any moment and over time. When our wellbeing climbs, our feelings about the world around us become more positive.
As people begin to return to the workplace, their wellbeing is likely not at impressively high levels. They are dealing with all of their original work-related stresses (commutes, having to dress for work, etc.) along with a suite of stresses that are uniquely post-pandemic, such as supervising kids who suddenly and indefinitely are homeschooling, again.
With many negatives beating down wellbeing, it’s likely that those involved with workplace design or management will see an extraordinary number of complaints about all sorts of things – temperatures will be inappropriate, chairs delivered won’t seem as comfortable as chairs ordered, build outs “won’t” align with renderings approved, sound masking won’t be working, lights may seem to flicker. The list of “comments” and “suggestions” you can potentially receive is nearly endless.
When someone brings up the temperature, chairs, renderings, sound masking, lights, etc., it is necessary to investigate whatever they’ve said. It is possible for instance that the temperature somewhere is indeed wrong and “steps” actually may need to be taken.
Most likely, however, the temperature, etc., will not actually be out of the acceptable range.
It’s also unlikely you’ll make any situations that arise better for you by sharing with users that since their wellbeing is low at the moment, their response to the physical environment is distorted. The only potential value of doing so would be to learn exactly how many loudly complaining individuals can fit into the area within shouting distance of your desk.
This wellbeing-perceptions link is for you (and your immediate team, if you see fit to tell them, after swearing them to secrecy) to know, so that you can try to summon the patience to make it through a challenging time.
It seems likely that, eventually people’s sense of, wellbeing will start to improve and so will their perceptions of their post-pandemic physical world. Then situations with issues coming your way for resolution is likely to fall back to roughly previous conditions—and hopefully the number of unpleasant comments made and received in the interim will not require a hunt for alternative employment on anyone’s part.
Hang on, workplace designers and facility managers. There’s turbulence ahead, but after some bumps, pleasant skies with only scattered clouds.
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.