Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Recognizing Differences

Not all employees have the same job descriptions, but at many companies you’d never know that from the individual workspaces/workplaces made available to them.

At most organizations, some employees are mostly doing work that doesn’t require too much concentration; they’re completing what might be called “tactical” tasks. Maybe these workers have been doing the same sorts of things for a long time, for example, or whatever they’re asked to do just isn’t “focus-intense.” Many employees doing starter jobs have tactical responsibilities.

People can do tactical work well when they’re in a more open space, shared with their co-workers. When they’re tucked away, out of contact with others, tactical employees tend to, in everyday terms, “zone out.” When our work doesn’t require much concentration, our work environments shouldn’t provide too much acoustic or visual screening.

Other employees generally need to concentrate on the task at hand; that’s how they add most value to their employer. They are doing strategic thinking and when they loose their train of thought, their performance suffers. People in R&D departments or coming up with new ways of accomplishing things spend a lot of time doing strategic thinking. Toiling away in a soundproof, windowless box is creepy and not good for anyone or their work, but people who need to focus on their work need to be able to block most of the audio and visual distractors that fill modern offices.

Workplaces for all of the focusing folks are often discussed more extensively than those for tactical workers when a new workspace is being developed – but they shouldn’t be. People doing tactical work are key to an organization’s success. If they can’t do their jobs well, checks start to bounce, etc.

Frequently an organization ultimately decides on the same basic workspace for all – an open “status-free” zone with concentration pods tucked in here and there, perhaps with no assigned chairs. Being able to make choices about where to work (in other words, having some control over their workplace experiences) gives people a positive psychological boost; but for people to work to their full potential, something more than just choice is required.

Design works harder and better when each worker has a core work area – whether they’re doing tactical or strategic work – that supports their efforts to do their job well. And for optimal memory function, people doing strategic work need to be able to return to the same seat for day after day until a project is finished.

Workspace-task alignment signals respect for employees and the contribution they make, and people do amazing things when they feel valued.

Think individual workspaces don’t matter much because we live an age where collaboration is all that really counts? A lot of collaborative work is done alone, before and after meetings take place.

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.