Why this Research Matters
(Especially Now!)
As designers, we’ve partnered with clients worldwide to reimagine and adapt to the future of work. With hybrid work now an established model, companies are reducing their office footprint through strategies like seat-sharing and right-sizing, leading to significant cost savings. But we’ve noticed a concerning trend: without assigned seating and with the lack of privacy in open-plan offices, employees are feeling disconnected and like they’ve lost their “home base.”
Our research shows this is a real issue —workers need autonomy, privacy, and a sense of belonging to operate at their best. When they’re not comfortable in the office, their ability to focus, create, and engage meaningfully with their work is greatly diminished. As hybrid work and shared seating retain their foothold, addressing their impact on the office experience is more important than ever.
When your seat isn’t yours and your desk has no walls, do you still have a “home base” at the office?
While optimized footprints and shared seats offer cost savings and flexibility for employers, they can sacrifice comfort, autonomy, and privacy for workers. Numerous studies document the negative effects of unassigned and open-plan seating on employee productivity, health, and workplace relationships, among other important variables.
Unassigned seating is associated with…
Previous research suggests that people do their best work when they feel “at home” in a space.
Our work on creativity and the built environment showed that people reported the most creativity in environments that made them feel at home (Perkins Eastman 2021 ONEder Grant: Creativity at Work).
Psychological and physical comfort and autonomy are associated with improved productivity and well-being (Knight & Haslam, 2010).
Objects that “represent essential traits and values of the self” facilitate creative thought (Csikzentmihalyi, 1997).
Low cognitive load is associated with greater divergent thinking ability (Baror & Bar, 2016).
The effort associated with self-presentation depletes self-regulatory resources (Vohs et al., 2005).
In 2023, our team conducted a small experience-sampling study, “SomePlace Like Home: Understanding the Qualities and Benefits of Hominess in Work Settings.”
We found that:
Greater workspace comfort was significantly correlated with better mood.
Workspaces that are more reflective of an individual’s personality and interests were significantly correlated with higher reported productivity.
Workspace comfort, privacy, personalization, and modifiability were all associated with more creativity.
Continuing on the Road to Hominess
To better understand the challenges associated with feeling at home in open-plan, free-address environments, Perkins Eastman received a ONEder Grant from One Workplace to conduct a multi-method study, exploring how workspaces can maintain the benefits of flexible design—like collaboration and choice—while reducing the cognitive strain on employees.