Satisfaction in the office

The built environment researcher Thomas Parkinson analysed previously unpublished responses from over 600 office buildings in the Center for the Built Environment database; the paper gives the buildings and not how many people answered. 81% of respondents were dissatisfied with at least one aspect of their workspace, and 67% with more than one. Acoustics led, driven by people talking, speech privacy and telephones, followed by a perceived lack of control over the temperature and insufficient space. Being near a window lowered the likelihood of dissatisfaction, and there was a clear relationship between self-perceived performance and satisfaction with the indoor environment.

The indoor environment researcher Monika Frontczak analysed 52,980 responses collected over ten years from 351 office buildings and ranked 15 parameters by how much each contributed to overall workspace satisfaction. Satisfaction with the amount of space came first at an odds ratio of 1.57, then noise level at 1.27 and visual privacy at 1.26. It ranked first for every age group, both sexes, single offices, shared offices and cubicles, and for desks within 4.6 metres of a window and beyond. Satisfaction with the amount of space was not related to the square metres available per person, so the floor area allocated does not predict how people rate it.

The architecture researcher Özgür Göçer worked with 9,794 post-occupancy surveys from 77 Australian open-plan offices and then narrowed to a subset: the ten offices with the lowest satisfaction scores, with 1,063 respondents, and the ten highest, with 1,070. Satisfaction was measured on seven factors: aesthetics and quality of the building and the office, thermal comfort and air quality, noise distraction and privacy, personal control, connection to the outdoors, maintenance and visual comfort, and individual space. In the low-scoring offices, aesthetics and quality predicted perceived productivity most strongly at a beta of 0.55, and noise distraction and privacy second at 0.33, both at p below 0.001.

The building researcher Suyeon Bae sorted 2,275 responses from 30 workplace buildings, collected over nine years, by sex, age and tenure. Men were more likely than women to be satisfied with thermal conditions, acoustics, electric lighting and privacy. The middle age group, 35 to 54, was less satisfied than both the 18 to 34 group and the over-55s. People who had worked in a place for less than two years were more satisfied with most factors than longer-serving colleagues. The same building produces different satisfaction depending on who is asked.

The building researcher Guy Newsham compared 12 green and 12 conventional office buildings across Canada and the northern United States, surveying 2,545 occupants and taking physical measurements at 974 workstations: thermal conditions, air quality, acoustics, lighting, workstation size, ceiling height, window access, shading and surface finishes. The green buildings did better on environmental satisfaction, satisfaction with thermal conditions, satisfaction with the view out, aesthetic appearance, disturbance from ventilation noise, workplace image and night-time sleep quality.

All five studies here are cross-sections, and nobody was measured before and after anything. Frontczak pooled 52,980 responses and Göçer 9,794 post-occupancy surveys, both collected by other people for other purposes. Parkinson worked with over 600 buildings. Newsham measured 24 in detail. Bae’s 2,275 responses came in over nine years.