Creating the Productive Workplace

Derek Croome

CRC Press, Nov 12, 1999 - Technology & Engineering - 384 pages

In an increasingly competitive environment, companies are being forced to think harder than ever about the way they work and how they can improve profitability. Creating the Productive Workplace provides a critical, multidisciplinary review of the factors affecting workplace productivity. Productivity is a key issue for individual companies as well as the national economy as a whole. With 70-90 per cent of the costs of running an organisation consisting of the salaries of the workforce, small increases in worker productivity can reap high financial returns. Many studies have shown that productivity at work bears a close relationship to the work environment. This book sets out the most important factors and evidence behind this phenomenon, and offers solutions to providing a work environment inducive to productivity. This book is essential reading for facilities and estates office managers, interior designers, architects and building environmental engineers. It is also a text for undergraduates and postgraduates studying these disciplines and related subjects.

Contents

• Indoor environment and productivity: 3
• Creativity in the workplace: 18
• Consciousness wellbeing and the senses: 29
• The nature of consciousness: 30
• Architecture and the senses: 33
• Multisensory experience: 34
• Wellbeing and productivity: 36
• Pleasure and joy and their role in human life: 40
• Sensory pleasure: 41
• Pleasure and comfort: 44
• Conflicts of motivations: 45
• Optimisation of behaviour: 47
• Conclusions: 48
• Emotion and the environment the forgotten dimension: 51
• Purpose intention and goaldirected behaviour: 52
• The social aspect of attitude: 53
• Imperceptibility: 54
• Perception: 55
• Types of emotion: 57
• Environment and behaviour: 60
• Emotions as a crucial component of environmental meaning: 62
• Can we assign affective appraisals for places?: 63
• Development of a conceptual model for affective appraisal of spaces: 64
• Conclusions: 66
• A broad definition of comfort as an aid to meeting commitments on carbon dioxide reduction: 71
• Stress and the changing nature of work: 77
• Change as a source of stress: 78
• Counting the cost of mismanaged stress: 79
• The workplace change and more change: 80
• Diagnosing occupational stress: 85
• Options for the management of stress in the workplace: 86
• Secondary level interventions preventive stress management strategies: 87
• Tertiary level interventions curative stress management strategies: 88
• The economic case for productivity: 91
• The economics of enhanced environmental services in buildings: 93
• Problems with the market for indoor environmental quality: 94
• Public policy remedies: 97
• Assessment of link between productivity and indoor air quality: 107
• Objectives: 108
• Results: 109
• Definitions: 110
• Research methodology: 112
• Results of research: 115
• Conclusions and future research requirements: 124
• The nature of productivity: 127
• Assessment and measurement of productivity: 129
• The analytic hierarchy process: 132
• Subjective measurements and design of questionnaire: 134
• Occupant and environmental survey of buildings: 137
• office building in London: 138
• office building in Maidenhead: 151
• Conclusions: 162
• Productivity in buildings the killer9 variables: 167
• Terminology: 170
• Objectives: 171
• Conclusions: 186
• Individual control at each workplace the means and the potential benefits: 192
• The need for individual control: 193
• Delegation of control: 194
• The expected benefits of delegating control: 196
• Estimating how much thermal microclimate control is required: 197
• Acceptable levels of fan noise for individual thermal control: 200
• Estimating the productivity impact of providing individual control: 202
• the West Bend Mutual study: 204
• Creating highquality workplaces using lighting: 207
• From light to vision: 209
• Activation arousal and stress: 211
• Beliefs expectations and emotions: 213
• Conclusions: 216
• Concentration and thinking: 225
• Attention and performance in the workplace: 227
• The nature of skills: 228
• The use of information in training: 230
• Using visual symbolsicons to convey information or instructions: 231
• Stimulusresponse compatibility: 234
• Relating psychological variables to physical variables: 239
• How to take account of the user?: 240
• Concentration and attention new directions in theory and assessment: 242
• Goals and obstacles: 243
• Mental fatigue: 244
• Mental effort and mental fatigue in the workplace: 245
• Sources of job interference: 246
• Strategies of intervention: 247
• Assessing the effect of an intervention: 248
• The importance of multiple measures: 254
• Case studies: 257
• Managerial and employee involvement in design processes: 259
• The case of no windows: 260
• The case of the colourcoordinated floors: 261
• The case of a great building that does not work: 262
• Attending to social and organisational perceptions: 263
• Managerial and employee involvement in decision making: 266
• Points of involvement in design and construction processes: 269
• Summary: 271
• The Intelligent Workplace a research laboratory: 272
• ABSIC: 274
• Exogenous developments: 275
• Major innovations: 276
• Significance of the IW: 279
• Airconditioning systems of the Kl Building Tokyo: 281
• Fragrance environment: 285
• Airflow fluctuation control: 288
• Biomusic: 291
• Diversifying workspaces: 292
• Sound masking: 293
• Employee productivity and the intelligent workplace: 295
• an insurance companys office environment: 296
• Conclusions: 301
• Future design guidelines and tools: 304
• Comfort temperatures: 305
• Comfort cooling: 306
• Nightlight: 307
• Finishes: 308
• Building form: 309
• The benefits of good design: 310
• Conclusions: 311
• Optimising the working environment: 313
• The future: 321
• New ways of working a vision of the future: 323
• The catalytic function of design in a time of change: 324
• A supplyside innovator: 325
• Two demandside innovators: 326
• New ways of working the price of relevance: 328
• The equation linking supply and demand: 329
• Measuring efficiency and effectiveness: 331
• A vision of the future: 332
• Creating the Productive Workplace Summary of Conference held at Westminster Central Hall London 2930 October 1997: 334
• People concentration and work: 338
• Best practice in gaining a competitive edge: 340
• The future for workplace and environmental design: 342
• Conclusions: 345

Bibliographic information

• Title: Creating the Productive Workplace
• Author: Derek Croome
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: CRC Press, 1999
• ISBN: 0419236902, 9780419236900
• Length: 384 pages
• Subjects: Architecture / Design, Drafting, Drawing & Presentation; Medical / Health Care Delivery; Technology & Engineering / Engineering (General); Technology & Engineering / Industrial Health & Safety