Office Window View Features and Employee Well-Being

Abstract

Over the past decades an increasing number of studies from diverse disciplines have shown that exposure to nature improves our well-being. However, today’s urban lifestyles involve long hours spent in office spaces, with few hours spent in natural surroundings. In order to benefit from nature’s benefits, a growing number of organizations are therefore re-designing workplaces to give employees greater exposure to nature via office window views. This study takes a closer look at the beneficial role of office window views for employee well-being, a topic rarely examined in management research. Survey data from 422 employees reveals that not all natural window views improve employee well-being. Only natural window views with certain structural features relate to improved employee well-being, and natural window views with other features have detrimental effects on employee well-being. In addition, this study demonstrates that these view features predict employee outcomes better than the amount of nature in an office window view and that also features of urban window views relate to employee well-being. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.