Earning the commute – and why smiling is good for sore eyes

Amazon prime?

Employee response to Amazon’s back to work mandate (one survey suggested 91% dissatisfied and 73% considering changing jobs https://www.xatakaon.com/business-and-economics/new-survey-finds-that-91-of-employees-are-unhappy-with-amazons-total-return-to-office-policy) demonstrates just how much things have changed since the pandemic.

This mass exodus means not only a loss of talent to the business but a gain for competitors.

The office needs to earn the commute, and the thriving the workplace design sector is proof that the employers are taking the challenge seriously. What does that mean when it comes to the lights?

Three broad trends in the research

• Smart buildings – integrating natural and dynamic artificial lighting to optimise energy use, performance and comfort – optimised daylighting can not only reduce energy use by over 60% (Meeting User Needs through Building Automation and Control Systems: A Review of Impacts and Benefits in Office Environments) but improve productivity and even physical activity and sleep. But a word of caution – these hyper-automated systems only work when the employee is actively involved and understands how to use the system and feels the boss has their interests at heart – when we feel we’re being controlled by a faceless big brother we find ingenious ways to thwart the system – as anyone who has put gaffer tape over a CCTV camera will know – A review of select human-building interfaces and their relationship to human behavior, energy use and occupant comfort.
• Zoning – using brightness colour temperature, contrast and scale to encourage different preferences and activities. The interaction. is complex, and preferences will depend on age, culture and even gender (Interactive effect of illuminance and correlated colour temperature on colour preference and degree of white light sensation for Chinese observers), but bright cool open effects seem to boost focus, while softer warm enclosed environments encourage more intimate, collaborative behaviour (Effects of correlated color temperature of office light on subjective perception, mood and task performance)

• Local control – simply having access to a light switch tops the list when it comes to engagement and perceived environmental quality. But how to navigate the wide differences in personal preferences? Dominant team members are more likely to hog the remote control – the humble light switch could become a source of office politics and defeat the object of the exercise – Lighting preference profiles of users in an open office environment.

Of course, the most beautiful lights in the world won’t make up for a toxic culture or a space that’s noisy, airless and dirty space that’s too hot or too cold – Productivity Driven by Job Satisfaction, Physical Work Environment, Management Support and Job Autonomy.  

But it seems to me that how you do one thing is how you do everything,

If you’re in Stockholm on Tuesday 8th, please join me for a rare chance to go behind the scenes at EY’s LEED Platinum certified office and rub shoulders with some incredible experts including Ikea, Gensler and Ericsson and to. Link to register here.

Hobson’s choice 

Some jobs, like nursing, you just can’t do from home. So these remarkable professionals have no choice about where to work – around four in ten are looking for the exit sign. (https://nursesunions.ca/new-poll-alarming-number-of-nurses-are-looking-for-the-exit-sign/)

As this brilliant article points out – Integrating the Environmental Domain Into the Nursing Well-Being Model: A Call to Action. Such as the American Magnet Certification. 

Creating a healthy workplace for nurses is multifactorial – management, workload and recognition among others. When these are perceived as positive, burnout levels go down, commitment and retention go up – and patient outcomes improve too.  And yet, the physical environment, a focus of so much attention in the white collar workplace is often overlooked in accreditation programmes – The Magnet Recognition Program and Quality Improvement in Nursing.

But there is some light at the end of the tunnel with a growing number of studies showing that working with staff to deliver the right light at the right time, starting with daylight but integrating controls, zoning and simple strategies to reduce light trespass can boost satisfaction and patient care – Evaluation of staff’s perception of a circadian lighting system implemented in a hospital, Nurses’ Satisfaction With Patient Room Lighting Conditions: A Study of Nurses in Four Hospitals With Differences in the Environment of Care.

It’s World Smile Day 

Here are three facts to encourage you to turn that frown upside-down

1. Just faking a smile can boost your mood – imagining your hero or heroine smiling is better than clenching a pen between your teeth, but both will work – Global collaboration led by Stanford researcher shows that a posed smile can improve your mood,
2. The wider the smile, the more attractive you feel – every 10% increase in width increases how attractive you feel by over 10% – Smile dimensions affect self-perceived smile attractiveness.
3. Smiling gives your eyes a break – you tend to blink just before you smile, rinsing and relaxing your eyes. You tend to blink again just before you stop – that’s partly because the same set of muscles – the orbiculus oculi – control both responses – The Temporal Connection Between Smiles and Blinks.