This report summarises a wealth of information on the building design features that are known to have positive impacts on the health, wellbeing and productivity of office workers.  Teams of experts from the around the world were assembled to investigate a range of office design factors, from indoor air quality, thermal comfort and daylighting, to acoustics, interior layout, views and biophilia. The impacts of location and amenities were also considered. The findings show, overwhelmingly, that the design of an office can have a material impact on the health, wellbeing and productivity of its occupants. This report also provides a unique, high-level framework to enable building owners/occupiers to measure the impact their building has on employee health, wellbeing and productivity in order to use that information in financial decision-making. Includes lots of non-technical advice and guidance checklists at the back of the paper.

This study gathers survey data from 7,600 workers across 16 countries worldwide, aiming to quantify the health and wellbeing benefits of biophilic design in the workplace, and highlight the issues that surround working in environments that do not provide a connection with the natural world.  Well-being is measured as a combination of three scales (happy, inspired and enthusiastic) using Robertson Cooper’s stress evaluation tool, ASSET.  Results show that workplaces that incorporate natural elements, such as greenery and sunlight, report a 15% higher level of well-being, are 6% more productive and 15% more creative overall.  These findings make a strong case for the importance of biophilia in the workplace.  

The Leesman Index is a global benchmarking tool that measures how well workplaces’ built environments support their employees.  This research report uses the survey database which has 35,000 responses from 280 workplaces worldwide to investigate whether Activity Based Working (ABW) delivers on its industry claims to improve engagement, empowerment, collaboration and productivity.  The study found that ABW environments do deliver significant performance improvements on multiple measurement lines for employees who modify behaviours to their new surroundings. However, the research also found poor adoption of appropriate behaviour in activity based workplaces is a significant problem that limits widespread organisational benefits. 71% of the 11,000 ABW employees said they anchored themselves to a single desk.  The study therefore asks why so few employees are embracing the opportunities that ABW presents.

This study surveyed 248 office workers at a large USA corporate to assess the impact of different office design features on performance, stress, and informal learning.  The 329 item questionnaire was designed to measure positive and negative relationships between 21 office design features and work activities.  The study determined that only certain design features were perceived to directly enhance performance, and other features were found to directly support stress reduction or informal learning, which indirectly supported performance. Findings also differed across job roles, although for three of the 21 design features, workers were consistent with each other in their priority rankings and agreed on the way in which they impacted performance, stress and learning. The study concluded that organisations should target the most critical design needs that job types share in common as well as provide for differences among job types to maximise worker ability to perform and return on investment.