Factors Affecting Occupants’ Satisfaction in Governmental Buildings: The Case of the Kingdom of Bahrain

Noora Albuainain,Ghaleb Sweis,Zoubeir Lafhaj,Rateb Sweis,Wassim Albalkhy

doi:10.3390/buildings11060231

Abstract

Satisfaction is a very important factor in improving productivity and performance in the work environment. This study aims to investigate the levels of occupants’ satisfaction with the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in the governmental buildings in the Kingdom of Bahrain and to investigate the impact of occupants’ demographics and building attributes (non-IEQ factors) on these levels. For these purposes, the study used a questionnaire that has 17 indoor environmental quality (IEQ) factors in addition to a group of non-IEQ factors. The questionnaire was distributed by hand or using email to 279 employees in the Bahraini governmental sector. The findings of the study revealed that occupants in the Bahraini governmental buildings are not strongly satisfied with IEQ factors, especially with sound privacy, followed by visual privacy and amount of space, and then noise levels. The findings also showed that for most IEQ factors, men are more satisfied than women are, those who work in enclosed private offices are more satisfied than those who work in open-plan offices, and those who have central air-conditioning at their workplace are more than those who have a wall-mounted air conditioner. The impact of age, nature of work, duration of working in the current building and at the current workstation, weekly working hours, and proximity to the window were also investigated. Accordingly, a group of recommendations was suggested aiming to improve the levels of occupants’ satisfaction.

Highlights

Research has shown that occupants in buildings, in general, and in workplaces, in particular, are affected by many building-related factors
While most studies in the literature compared different types of ventilation systems, including natural ventilation during heating and cooling seasons [134,135,136,137], this study compared only two types of mechanical systems because the other types are rarely used in Bahrain, and all ventilation systems are only used for cooling purposes
The findings showed that the lowest satisfaction levels were with sound privacy, visual privacy and amount of space, and noise levels; 2

Summary

Introduction

Research has shown that occupants in buildings, in general, and in workplaces, in particular, are affected by many building-related factors. Correlations between health problems, including mental and physical illnesses were found in numerous studies [7,8] In this regard, IEQ factors are linked with a group of health problems that are called sick building syndrome (SBS) [7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]. In a review that included 300 journal articles, Al Horr et al [6] found that occupants’ comfort and productivity are influenced by eight IEQ factors, which are office layout, thermal comfort, indoor air quality, noise and acoustics, lighting, location and feel, location and amenities, biophilia, and views

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