The office environment – the most common workplace in Sweden
Today nearly 60% of all employees in Sweden work in an office environment at least 25% of their working hours. As a result of digitisation, conditions in the office environment have changed significantly. Technology has enabled mobility and flexibility in a completely new way; iPads and smart phones have helped make us mobile and flexible in brand new ways. One in three people working in an office environment has their own room, while about 15% do not have their own desk or room, but have to choose from non-personal desks/workstations . But regardless of the type of office you work in, activity-based office work has seen a breakthrough. Flexibility permeates the entire day. You can have customer meetings, work at home, work on the train, or go to other premises or departments within the company.
The sustainable office of the future
Sustainability and climate issues are also subjects of current interest in office research. What form should the transition to a sustainable perspective take when it comes to the office workplace? How can we develop modern offices that assures the health of employees, companies and the planet?
According to Susanna Toivanen, Professor of Sociology at Mälardalen University, Sween, a ‘sustainable office’ is an office that satisfies the current needs of an office environment without compromising on the needs of future generations.
“This classification of sustainability is based on the classic Brundtland definition. This involves environmental, economic and social sustainability. The social aspect includes employee health, as well as the health of society and the planet. We also talk about ‘healthy offices’ – where we start from a definition that derives from a large research project that looked at long-term healthy companies to discover what distinguishes them. This is measured, among other things, by looking at sick leave statistics based on office type.”
SLA – sound, light, air
In the physical environment, we usually talk about SLA – sound, light and air. These are usually the major challenges in office workplaces, particularly in open-plan offices. For example, in terms of light, it may involve how the lighting can be distributed evenly throughout the premises, as well as in the centre of the office landscape. In many landscapes that are in deep buildings, this can be a problem. There you can quickly see which places are most popular – those at the window with a view and natural light.
Sound can become a problem in open-plan office landscapes. It is important to get the help of an acoustician early in the planning stage in order to plan the sound environment as well as possible. There are no guidelines for noise as a work environment factor in an office environment, and disruption is a subjective experience for each employee.
In terms of air, the issues are both temperature and ventilation. For example, in office refurbishments where walls have been removed and existing environments have been refurnished, the ventilation may not be designed to cope with the number of employees required. In that instance, it may feel like there is not enough air.
These are physical factors that affect a person’s perception of the working environment as a whole. Often it is a combination of stresses – sound, light and air – perhaps all at the same time, that influences how we experience the environment, and affects our wakefulness and performance at work.
The working life of the future
If we instead look at the challenges for the working life of the future, we can already see that we are moving through a period of rapid and constant change.
“The symptoms you see during such a rapid development are that people cannot keep up with the changes, which can lead to increased sick leave,” says Professor Toivanen. “Each era has experienced the same pattern. The introduction of electricity changed the conditions for work – suddenly we could work even when it was dark. The arrival of trains was also a stress factor. All periods have seen their social changes, and have expressed a level of stress and associated worry. The reality of our time is that the planet’s population is huge, and the technological revolution is advancing like no other previous change, as far as we know.”
Another new factor is the concept of ‘boundaryless work’ in our 24/7 connected society. As an individual, you are never truly at rest. The means, technology and software that we have access to, which should be able to help us work less, have actually led to us being able to work more. This also means that time for recovery and relaxation has decreased. A break that is crucial for us to feel good and maintain our health.
Toivanen continues:
“This limitless working life, and this limitless way of working, place much greater demands on the individual to plan and perform their own work. Nowadays office work is also performed in alternative workplaces and work environments, at home or perhaps on a train. As a result, you can also talk about ‘boundaryless offices’, linked to these ‘new ways of working’. This way of working is the result of digitisation.”
New rooms – inside and out
So what will the workplaces of the future look like if we are becoming increasingly digital and mobile? Could you even do office work outdoors?
“We have been working on the issue of outdoor offices since 2014, and my PhD student is working with Sweden’s, maybe even Europe’s, first dissertation on office work outdoors,” says Toivanen. “The objection usually raised is often it is cold and unpleasant for much of the year in Sweden, so who would want to go out then? We don’t think that you should work 8 hours outdoors, but it should be possible to introduce elements of outdoor working during the work day and see how it affects health, performance and cognition.”
“In Växjö, Sweden, property company Castellum has developed what we know is the first permanent outdoor office workplace in Sweden (2016). There is a meeting table, a roof with solar cells and a space that can be booked for meetings. Different tenants and companies have access to this facility as an added value to their own premises. There is electricity for powering computers, and there are different types of seating. Several types of outdoor office have now been developed, with other companies, including some with mobile outdoor modules that you can move around in an outdoor environment and work with portable devices.”
Toivanen concludes with a couple of examples of work that can be performed outside:
“You can quite simply go outside for a while, to recover, for instance, or make a call. You can take a lunchtime walk, hold Monday meetings or customer meetings, sit and read or get inspiration for your work projects. The most important thing is recovery, and variation in the work. After a while outdoors, it is quite possible that you will gain a new perspective on your work indoors.”