Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Sending the Right Message

Nonverbal signals are powerful. The ones sent by the places we use have very, very important effects on how we think and behave.

For at least many decades, and maybe since the first workplace was organized, people working in professional environments have looked for clues in their architecture, interior design, maintenance, etc. about what’s really important to management, what their core values really are. Value and mission statements are easy to change, the heights of ceilings, number of windows, amenities provided, etc., are not, so they have been felt to be better representations of management’s way of thinking than anything that can be easily written and rewritten.

As it becomes possible for people who want or need to return to working onsite, at facilities owned/managed by their employers, to do so, the messages those locations transmit will need to be very carefully monitored. Their health-related “silent signals” are particularly important now because it is challenging for people without medical training to objectively monitor unbiased information on appropriate strategies for health-safe workplace operations.

In the COVID-19 era, keeping track of what employees think are the appropriate ways to clean and otherwise prevent disease transmission in workplaces, and assessing how those thoughts align with practices actually in place, will be key to keeping employee stress levels down, whether they’re working onsite or at home. People will feel less tense when they believe all appropriate steps are being taken, and will form opinions about management accordingly, whether they are actually utilizing firm-owned/managed work areas or not.

Lower stress levels mean not only better employee mental health but also better employee performance since stress siphons off cognitive energy that could otherwise be used on the task at hand, whether that’s writing advertising slogans or developing international tax strategies or something else entirely.

There are multiple management “action items” that might ensue when employee sentiments are evaluated.

Employees might believe that all appropriate steps are being taken to safeguard their health, and peace and happiness will prevail.

It is likely that regularly, however, a new cleaning product or practice, not being utilized by even the most conscientious employer, will be a hot topic in the popular press and that will influence perceptions of existing workplace practices. Managers might decide to change practices because whatever has been introduced is an improvement on current options.

An employer might decide to educate employees about why the new product/process will not be useful at their organization, which is likely to be a long and arduous process.

Practices may, however, need to change because not modifying “the way things get done around here” seems to signal lack of concern for employees; there are few quicker ways to erode the employer-employee bonds needed for continued organizational success than apparent lack of respect for employees and the contributions that they make to organizational success.

There are, of course, limits to policies and practices that can be implemented simply to give employees a positive impression of their employers, and the swirling clouds of hard-to-understand information about appropriate practices can make it difficult to communicate effectively about trade-offs between competing options.

Obviously, options that have even the vaguest possibility of degrading employee physical health cannot be implemented, ever.

Regardless of the cleaning and other space management options that come and go, the vigor with which employees look for clues in physical environments about employer opinions will remain. On occasion, new cleaning/maintenance-type options without the strongest evidence for actually improving health will need to be introduced – even when there are not physical health-related reasons for making changes, there can be mental health and wellbeing and cognitive performance rationales for doing so.

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.