The Impact of Environment on the Productivity Attitudes of Intellectually Challenged Office Workers

Abstract

Factors affecting the productivity of intellectually challenged office workers have not been systematically investigated. The impact of environment (lighting, noise, pleasant sounds, landscape, etc.) on the expressed productivity of 11 office workers engaged in decisionmaking, design, and/or creative work was explored in a realistic office setting. A novel feature in the experimental office environment was an “artificial window,” designed as a substitute for an outside window in an interior office, using motion picture loops of outdoor/nature scenes projected onto a back-projection screen. Matching nature sound or music could also be introduced as accompaniment. For long-term comfort and productivity, the artificial window was rated nearly as desirable as an outside window. Additional findings were that subjects preferred low-level music or nature sounds to a totally quiet office, and that introduction of these sounds could also block to some extent the undesirable effects of cyclic-pattern industrial noise. However, the introduction of music or nature sounds in concert with random-pattern noise, such as in a very noisy office, tended to accentuate the undesirable effects of the noise.