Outdoor Office Work - An Interactive Research Project Showing the Way Out

Engaging with nature and work: associations among the built and natural environment, experiences outside, and job engagement and creativity

Introduction

There is substantial evidence that contact with nature is related to positive health and well-being outcomes, but extensions of this research to work-related outcomes is sparse. Some organizations are redesigning workspaces to incorporate nature and adopting nature-related policies, warranting a need for empirical studies that test the influence of nature on employee outcomes.

Methods

The present mixed-methods study tests and extends the biophilic work design model to examine associations among the built and natural environment at work and home, experiences of time spent outside (i.e., amount of time outside, enjoyment of time outside, outdoor activities), and motivational work outcomes (i.e., job engagement and creativity). Objective geographic data were combined with quantitative and qualitative survey responses from working adults (N = 803).

Results

Our results broadly indicate that individuals who work and live in areas with greater natural amenities (i.e., access to water, topographic variation, temperate climates) spend more time outside and enjoy time outside to a greater degree, and these experiences are in turn associated with greater engagement and creativity at work. We did not find evidence that the surrounding built environment (i.e., urbanity) at work or home was associated with outdoor experiences or work-related outcomes. Additionally, six categories of outdoor activities were identified in the qualitative analyses - leisure activities, relaxation, physical activities, social interactions, tasks and errands, and travel.

Discussion

The findings from this study provide evidence that the natural environment, particularly at home, can benefit work-related outcomes via greater time and enjoyment of time outside. This study has implications for employee time use and organizational effectiveness.

The outdoor office: a pilot study of environmental qualities, experiences of office workers, and work-related well-being

Outdoor office work is an emerging aspect of the concept of 'new ways of working', but only sparse data are available about the environmental qualities of the outdoor office space, experiences of office workers, and work-related well-being of outdoor office work. Here, we present an exploratory pilot study on well-being and outdoor office work in a public urban space. An outdoor office was set up in the courtyard of a university campus, and the participants (n = 16) conducted office work outdoors for 30 min and thereafter participated in an eye-tracking session for 11-15 min (n = 8) and subsequently filled out surveys (n = 16). The eye tracker allowed the discovery of natural and built elements in the outdoor environment that caught the participants' visual attention, whereas the surveys assessed aspects of their subjective experiences of the outdoor office space (its visual and spatial qualities) and the work there. The results are presented as network graphs where correlations are shown regarding different aspects of office work outdoors. The results indicate that outdoor office work in a public urban space may promote work-related well-being in terms of positive outdoor office space experiences. Based on the findings, a preliminary set of outdoor office qualities is proposed. Those qualities relate to the legibility and imageability of the outdoor office space, its focal points, and depth/spaciousness, in addition to attributes of usability and environmental richness, including if the outdoor office space affords natural contact and supports activities, in addition to social and individual interactions and relations.

Interdisciplinary approach to defining outdoor places of knowledge work: quantified photo analysis

Introduction

Working outdoors is an emerging, sparsely studied phenomenon in knowledge work. Office tasks have traditionally been considered to belong to indoor environments. The worldwide pandemic of COVID-19 has increased and changed attitudes toward multilocational working. The aim of this method study is 2-fold: first to define for interdisciplinary context outdoor environments when they are used as places of outdoor knowledge work and second to quantify the thematic photo analysis to support interdisciplinary understanding of the places of outdoor knowledge work.

Methods

The review of literature has been one of the methods to support the interdisciplinary approach of this article. The photographs of outdoor knowledge workplaces and views from the workstations are studied through photo analysis customized from the existing press photograph analysis.

Results

First, we defined outdoor environments when used as places of outdoor knowledge work, as unconditioned outdoor or semi-outdoor places (opposite to closed indoor spaces with stable, conditioned indoor climate) providing favorable action possibilities as sources of comfort and mitigating unfavorable conditions, for example, by microclimatic solutions. Instead of defining all spaces as outdoor environments not fulfilling a stable indoor climate (conditioned) definition, adaptation to thermal and physical environments also brought semi-outdoor space into the definition. In this context, favorable latent action possibilities (affordance) in the built environment are often related to microclimate as a source of comfort. Second, we focussed on photo analysis. The proposed model is based on journalistic photo analysis PPSA and the pOKW model, which have been further developed in this study to pOKW2 model for analyzing mobile-based collected self-reported photographs by the occupants. In this pOKW2 model, the photographs would have time-location information enabling the combining of data from other datasets and thereby reducing the number of characteristics to be analyzed from the photograph. We proposed rating (in numeric form) to detect the favorable and unfavorable characteristics in the photographs most likely supporting or hindering conditions of outdoor knowledge work. This quantification would enable the use of machine vision analysis and would support handling large quantities of photographs and their combination with other datasets in interdisciplinary research.

Discussion

The quantification of the photo analysis (pOKW2) includes the readiness to combine the analysis results with other time-location-specific datasets in an interdisciplinary research collaboration to advance our understanding of latent action possibilities for outdoor knowledge work.

Facilitators and barriers for using outdoor areas in the primary work tasks of eldercare workers in nursing homes

BACKGROUND

Eldercare workers in nursing homes report high musculoskeletal disorders, stressful work, and sickness absence. Initiatives that can accommodate these issues are needed. Current studies point out that nature contact may offer a range of human health benefits, potentially promoting healthier work among eldercare workers. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate facilitators and barriers for using outdoor areas as part of the daily work among eldercare workers in Danish nursing homes.

METHODS

In this multiple case study, we collected data from three nursing homes, conducting three semi-structured focus group interviews with eldercare workers and three individual interviews with nursing home managers. Furthermore, we conducted observations of the daily work and mappings of the nursing homes' outdoor environments to gain in-depth knowledge of eldercare workers' and managers' perspectives on using outdoor areas in their daily work. The data was thematically analysed using 'The Behaviour Change Wheel' (BCW), more specifically the COM-B model, as a theoretical foundation for exploring facilitators and barriers for the use of outdoor areas.

RESULTS

Frequently mentioned facilitators were facilities, traditions or repetitive events, positive experiences with residents ('star moments'), and knowledge about the residents. Frequently mentioned barriers were insufficient staffing, hierarchy in the work tasks, professional identity, and lack of ideas.

CONCLUSIONS

The identified facilitators and barriers should be considered when designing initiatives for increased use of outdoor areas or activities of eldercare workers.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

According to the Danish ethics committee (Law of committee, (komitéloven) paragraph 14, Sect. 2), qualitative interviews, which do not include human biological materials, do not need neither approval by ethical and scientific committee or informed consent (The Danish National Centre for Ethics).

Greenspace as Workplace: Benefits, Challenges and Essentialities in the Physical Environment

There is a scarcity of knowledge regarding the potential benefits of human-nature contact within the context of working life. Even more limited is the research that focuses on working outdoors and the setting in which it takes place. This study aimed to obtain insight into key aspects of the physical environment relevant for the experienced benefits and challenges of workers exploring office work outdoors. We conducted interviews with key informants as well as photo registration and mapping of the different green spaces in the environments of six small or medium-sized workplaces. The information gathered was used as background knowledge for exploratory qualitative interviews, which were conducted while walking in natural settings chosen by the interviewees. With a landscape architectural perspective and an inductive approach, we explored employees' experiences of bringing office work outdoors. The following themes emerged: 'Simplicity,' 'Safeness', 'Comfort', and 'Contact with Nature' were experienced as key aspects in relation to the physical environment, whereas 'Sociality', 'Well-being', and 'Functioning' stood out as the main benefits and, 'Digital dependency' and 'Illegitimacy' as challenges to overcome. Based on the identification of potential benefits and their prerequisites, we propose implications for practice and research that can be useful when focusing on bringing office work outdoors.