The search for the high-performance
workplace goes back over a hundred years but, according to Neil
Franklin, we are in a better position than ever to fully appreciate how
to create a working environment that not only minimises the risk of
people harming themselves but also helps them feel better and work
better.
The 35th anniversary of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act this
year may have given everybody pause for thought about the development
of health and safety, but the quest for an understanding of the links
between the places we work and our well-being and productivity has been
ongoing for much longer than that. In terms of office design, it has
its roots in the design of early landmark workplaces such as Frank
Lloyd Wright’s Larkin building, and research such as that carried out
at the Hawthorne Works in Chicago in the late 1920s.
The Hawthorne work has become seminal not only in the study of
productivity and ergonomics but also in wider management thinking, in
that it was initially interpreted as proof that an increase in
illumination in a factory improved productivity levels. Subsequent
experiments at the same site on the effects of such changes as
maintaining clean workstations, clearing floors of obstacles, and even
relocating workstations also yielded increases in productivity. When it
was discovered that productivity fell back to some degree at the end of
the experiments, a second interpretation was postulated — namely, that
the workers were not merely responding to better conditions but also to
the experiment itself; they liked the attention. And so the Hawthorne
Effect was born.
According to Ann Clarke, of Claremont Group Interiors, people like to
feel involved and appreciated. She said: “They don’t like being
disengaged from work, and like to know that their employers are paying
attention to their well-being. Better lighting is welcome and has a
role to play, but there is a complex process going on. The lighting
itself is not enough without management and the focus on the
individual. While nowadays such thinking is the norm, back then it must
have been revolutionary.”
Her point is supported by the work of another researcher, Frederick
Hertzberg, who, in 1966, showed that the workplace was a ‘hygiene
factor’, meaning a poor workplace was a demotivator but a good
workplace was not necessarily an important motivator. In layman’s
terms, it doesn’t matter where you work if you don’t like your job,
your boss, or your co-workers. It all has to fit.
Context is all-important
That this is so means the claims of many suppliers of ergonomic
products are a fallacy, according to Jorgen Josefsson, of RH Chairs. He
said: “People say that such and such a product is ‘ergonomic’ but
really the term is meaningless unless you look at things in context.
Ergonomics is about the relationship between people and their
environment, so that relationship is inherently a two-way thing and,
however well-designed a product is, the benefits of that design can
only be fully appreciated when it is used properly, with proper
training, and in the right wider environment of organisational culture
and management style. At the heart of that must be the belief that you
are looking after people for the right reasons. It’s no longer enough
to try to minimise the risk of harm; you have to improve well-being and
productivity as well.”
We know a lot more about how to achieve that since the time of the
Hawthorne experiments. Since then, a great deal of research has been
carried out, which paints an increasingly sophisticated picture of the
complex relationship we have with our surroundings. These range from
the academic, such as the work of Adrian Leaman and Bill Bordass at the
end of the 1990s, which identified what it called four killer variables
that linked building design to personal productivity, to recent
research from Gensler, to a 2006 report from CABE and the BCO, called
‘The impact of office design on business performance’.
Some suppliers are also doing their own research to make the point in
specific areas. For example, RH Chairs recently fitted a number of its
chairs with ‘black-box’ digital data-recorders at the headquarters of a
Dutch auto-recovery company to measure how people used the chairs in
terms of adjustments and movement. Combining these measurements with
answers given in a subsequent questionnaire, the company’s ergonomists
were able to analyse the impact of chair adjustment on various areas of
work and performance.
That the number of musculoskeletal complaints decreased over the trial
period was expected, but perhaps a more interesting statistic from the
study was the decrease in sick-leave percentage by 2 per cent in
comparison with the same period in the previous year. People also said
they felt more productive and more comfortable at work. While the
Hawthorne Effect informs us that the study may have been influenced by
other factors the results nevertheless provided a useful insight into
the working practices of call-centre workers, and now RH has begun new
research on a much broader scale at a large client site in Sweden.
Levent Çaglar, senior consultant ergonomist at the Furniture Industry
Research Association wasn’t surprised by the results. He said: “The
human body is not really designed to sit down on chairs as we have
known them. We are more suited to moving, or alternating between
sitting and standing. As modern office work — especially the use of
computers — forces us to sit down for considerable periods of time, we
should be able to move and adopt dynamic postures while we are seated.
Over a period of time any static posture, however biologically correct
and ergonomically correct, is never as good as dynamic postures where
the human body is allowed to make movements that encourage blood flow
and slow down the onset of fatigue.”
Let there be light
Another recent study that directly reflects the Hawthorne experiments,
in that it focuses on the impact of lighting on people’s well-being and
productivity, was recently published by the University of Surrey, in
partnership with RS Components and Phillips. The research was conducted
among 104 white-collar workers on two office floors. After baseline
assessments under existing lighting, every participant was exposed to
two new lighting conditions, each lasting four weeks. One consisted of
blue-enriched white light (17,000K) and the other of white light
(4000K). The order was balanced between the floors. A questionnaire and
rating scales were used to assess alertness, mood, sleep quality, and
mental effort throughout the eight-week study.
As well as improvements in all of the assessed characteristics, the
research also revealed improvements in subjective measures of positive
moods, fatigue in the evening, and ability to sleep at night.
Furthermore, the workers reported reduced eye-strain.
RS Components’ Mike Lear called the results outstanding. He added:
“What we believe is happening technically is that specific wavelengths
in blue-enriched white light are more effective because they target a
photoreceptor in the eye. It comes down to something we’ve known for a
long time, which is that people are not ideally suited to a world of
fluorescent lighting. Blue-enriched light is akin to natural light, so
it makes us feel better and work better. What is great is that the
research shows conclusively the way in which good lighting can improve
levels of well-being and performance, even when people are not at work.
It has enormous implications for the way we view lighting design.”
This move towards a more positive view of workplace wellness is now
widely accepted, according to Ann Clarke. Claremont has just finished
work on a post-occupancy study with Pace Micros. Said Ann: “We find
that most firms have clear objectives relating to what are
fundamentally human-resources and management issues when they look at
the design of their offices. These are based less and less on
traditional health and safety issues, such as providing x amount of lux
in offices, reducing the risk of upper-body problems for computer
users, and so on.
“Of course, these are all important, but firms also want to know what
it will all mean for productivity, absenteeism, and staff retention.
Such thinking can only become more prevalent in the current difficult
economic conditions. The important thing is to leverage a small amount
of extra cost in aspects of the way we design and manage workplaces
into enormous benefits in terms of the way we manage people.”
Neil Franklin is a freelance writer
The Safety Conversation with SHP (previously the Safety and Health Podcast) aims to bring you the latest news, insights and legislation updates in the form of interviews, discussions and panel debates from leading figures within the profession.
Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts, subscribe and join the conversation today!
