Christina Bodin Danielsson

Office design's impact on sick leave rates

The effect of office type on sickness absence among office employees was studied prospectively in 1852 employees working in (1) cell-offices; (2) shared-room offices; (3) small, (4) medium-sized and (5) large open-plan offices; (6) flex-offices and (7) combi-offices. Sick leaves were self-reported two years later as number of (a) short and (b) long (medically certified) sick leave spells as well as (c) total number of sick leave days. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used, with adjustment for background factors. A significant excess risk for sickness absence was found only in terms of short sick leave spells in the three open-plan offices. In the gender separate analysis, this remained for women, whereas men had a significantly increased risk in flex-offices. For long sick leave spells, a significantly higher risk was found among women in large open-plan offices and for total number of sick days among men in flex-offices. Practitioner Summary: A prospective study of the office environments effect on employees is motivated by the high rates of sick leaves in the workforce. The results indicate differences between office types, depending on the number of people sharing workspace and the opportunity to exert personal control as influenced by the features that define the office types.

An explorative review of the Lean office concept

Purpose – The concept of Lean office design has emerged, claiming to support an efficient labour process. This article aims to investigate how the two main perspectives identified in the Lean offic ...

26 – OFFICE EXPERIENCES

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the individual office employee’s experience of the physical office environment; its influence on the individual employee and in the prolongation on the organization to which the employee belongs. Since most organizations and businesses operate in a physical environment and the physical office environment sets the conditions for the activities performed, its impact should be recognized. The office experience has an impact through its functional, social, and symbolic implications on interaction and cooperation among employees; thus office experiences are fundamental at both an individual and an organizational level. Research on how the work environment influences employees is found in numerous fields such as architecture, organizational and management theory, social and stress medicine, as well as environmental and social psychology. Although this chapter touches upon all those fields, its focus is on the interior experience of office environments among employees. The aim is to discuss how the office environments influence employees, with an interdisciplinary approach to the subject. The special focus is on the part of the research presented in it that investigates the influence on employees’ office experience by different office types. When comparing the employees’ experiences of different office environments it is important to use the variety of office types that exists in office design today, instead of only comparing a vaguely defined open plan office to a single room office. According to the research, the architectural and functional features that define the existing office types have a great impact on office employees in different respects, such as employees’ health status, job satisfaction, and office experiences. Therefore, this chapter discusses how research results can be used in the professional practice of office design.

Office Employees’ Perception of Workspace Contribution: A Gender and Office Design Perspective

In this exploratory study, we investigated the relationship between office design and employee perception of its contribution to job satisfaction, comfort, and performance. The study includes 4,352 employees in seven different office designs. Associations between workspace satisfaction and perceived access to supportive facilities (ancillary spaces for concentrated work and for different meetings) were also investigated since these factors may be related to employees’ workspace satisfaction. Multivariate linear and logistic regression analyses were performed separately for men and women with adjustments for age and education. Supplementary correlation analyses were performed between workspace satisfaction and perceived access to supportive facilities. Results showed differences between employees’ workspace satisfaction in studied office designs. Those with the lowest ratings of access to supportive facilities reported the lowest degree of satisfaction. The best results were found in cell-offices and the worst ones in hot-desking offices. Gender differences were also observed.