August 1, 2019
Loneliness is increasingly recognised as a serious issue in modern society. In the UK, the Office of National Statistics reported that 5 percent of adults feel lonely ‘often’ or ‘always’, with further 16 percent of adults reporting feeling lonely ‘sometimes’, equivalent to approximately 9 million adults suffering from loneliness to some degree. As a consequence, […]
June 19, 2018
There is a witch hunt on in the workplace. “Open plan” has become a dirty word and the national press are leading the mob in vilifying this so-called scourge. The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail and Business Week have all reported that “we can’t get anything done in an open-plan office” as […]
October 23, 2017
I recently had the pleasure of travelling to Cape Town to present a keynote address at the Dare to Lead conference organised by Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA). I had just 20 minutes to speak on a psychologist’s view of health, wellbeing and performance; that’s a huge subject area and pretty much my whole career condensed […]
June 3, 2015
I recently reviewed over one hundred papers on the impact of noise on workplace satisfaction and found that on average sound level only accounts for 25 percent of effects. By contrast, more than half of the effect is due to psychological factors such as context and attitude, perceived control and predictability and personality type. Noise is a psychophysical […]
September 6, 2019
The open plan debate should never be seen as a zero sum game
by Nigel Oseland • Comment, Workplace design
The debate on open plan versus enclosed offices rages on, but workplace design is not a such a simple dichotomy. Furthermore, office occupants clearly have different workplace preferences depending on factors like personality, personalisation, flexibility and sense of belonging etc. Herman Miller and Workplace Trends sponsored Workplace Unlimited to conduct a short on-line survey to […]