How to Alleviate Feelings of Crowding in a Working from Home Environment: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Exploring multisensory home office design in virtual reality: Effects on task performance, heart rate, and emotion

The integration of virtual reality (VR) and multisensory experiences offers a novel approach to enhancing workspace design, particularly for home office environments. This preliminary study examines the effects of visual and olfactory stimuli in a VR-simulated smart home environment on presence, task performance, heart rate, and mood. Sensory conditions, including visual, olfactory, and combined stimuli, were controlled in an experiment with 60 participants to assess both physiological and psychological responses. Task performance was measured through cognitive tests, while heart rate and mood states were monitored using a heart rate sensor and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), respectively. Statistical results showed that the sense of presence provided by VR and specific conditions-such as visual stimuli (e.g., intelligent lighting systems)-effectively enhanced work efficiency, with task performance under visual stimuli significantly outperforming that under olfactory stimuli (e.g., peppermint scent). However, these sensory stimuli did not significantly affect heart rate or emotions. Our findings underscore the potential of sensory design to improve task performance and highlight the importance of the sensory environment in designing home offices, suggesting that sensory stimuli can enhance work efficiency in remote or virtual work settings.

Work fatigue during COVID-19 lockdown teleworking: the role of psychosocial, environmental, and social working conditions

Background

During national lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, previously office-based workers who transitioned to home-based teleworking faced additional demands (e.g., childcare, inadequate homeworking spaces) likely resulting in poor work privacy fit. Previous office research suggests poor work privacy fit is associated with lower wellbeing and higher work fatigue. Emerging evidence suggests a relationship between childcare duties during pandemic teleworking and work fatigue. In addition to psychosocial working conditions (job demand, job control, and job change management), which are acknowledged predictors of work fatigue, this poses a significant threat to occupational health during pandemic teleworking. However, the relative effects of aspects of the psychosocial environment (job demands and resources), the home office environment (including privacy fit), and the social environment (childcare) on work fatigue as well as their interactions are under-explored.

Objective

This study examined the relationships between the psychosocial, environmental, and social working conditions of teleworking during the first COVID-19 lockdown and work fatigue. Specifically, the study examined teleworkers' physical work environment (e.g., if and how home office space is shared, crowding, and noise perceptions) as predictors of privacy fit and the relationship between privacy fit, childcare, psychosocial working conditions (job demand, job control, and job change management), and work fatigue. Work privacy fit was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between childcare and work fatigue.

Methods

An online cross-sectional survey was conducted with teleworkers (n = 300) during the first COVID-19 lockdown in April and May 2020; most participants were in Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Results

Path analysis was used to examine the hypothesized relationships. Privacy fit was lower for those reporting greater levels of noise in home-working spaces and those feeling crowded at home. Work fatigue was lower amongst those with greater privacy fit and higher amongst those with high levels of job demand. An indirect relationship was observed between childcare and work fatigue with privacy fit mediating this relationship.

Conclusion

The influence of privacy fit has so far been largely neglected in research on teleworking, especially during the pandemic. However, its contribution to workers' wellbeing should be acknowledged in occupational health strategies.