Office design affects both the working environment and well-being
The office is more than just a place to work – it shapes how we collaborate, enjoy ourselves and feel. Research from KTH and the Stress Research Institute now shows that the physical environment plays a crucial role in the working environment and emotional health.
“The choice of office design affects the workplace climate and relationships between colleagues. This, in turn, may explain the differences in emotional health – measured as emotional exhaustion – that we saw,” says Christina Bodin Danielsson , a researcher in architecture at KTH, who, together with Töres Theorell of Stockholm University, is behind the study.
Many organisations are still struggling to get employees back to the office after the pandemic. When employees can choose their workplace, the design of the office becomes more important than previously thought – not least for emotional health. The study, which is the first of its kind, highlights how the physical environment affects the psychosocial work environment and shows clear differences between different office designs.
The results indicate that certain types of offices create better conditions for both well-being and recovery:
- Private offices (single-occupancy rooms) gave the best results for almost all psychosocial factors. One explanation for this may be that those who have their own room feel they have greater control.
- Shared offices (2–3 people per room) were considered most beneficial in terms of psychological demands, as they provided more social support from colleagues.
The study also shows differences between men and women:
- Men in "hot-desking offices", a form of activity-based office without a dedicated workspace and without support environments, reported the most problems – both in terms of the psychosocial work environment and emotional exhaustion.
- Women rated combination offices, which are defined by a high degree of group work, lowest in terms of the psychosocial work environment, and reported the most emotional exhaustion in small open-plan offices.
Overall, the results show how strongly the office environment affects both the working climate and well-being. These insights are important in a working life where employers need to create offices that both support health and attract employees to want to be there, according to Bodin Danielsson.
“I generally think that companies are too trend-sensitive when designing their offices. Instead, they should look at the needs of the organisation and what research says about different types of offices and their impact on the working environment and well-being,” she says.
The study was conducted by Christina Bodin Danielsson, researcher at Architecture, Engineering and Theory, KTH, and Professor Töres Theorell, Stress Research Institute at the Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, and is based on data from 4,352 Swedish office workers who work in seven different types of office environments.
Text: Therese Elmgren/Christer Gummeson ( gummeson@kth.se )