Evaluating the impact of workplace indoor environmental quality on employee comfort and wellness

The design and quality of the indoor environment is understood to play an important role in the well-being and productivity of building occupants. While many building and design strategies have been employed to enhance the indoor environmental quality of workplace environments there is a surprising a lack of empirical evidence drawn from buildings in-use that shows how such strategies actually affect occupants. This research project involves a comprehensive post-occupancy evaluation, one that includes occupant surveys, observation, and physical measurements of environmental conditions, of four workplace environments. The purpose of the study will be to assess and compare the quality of these environments and to determine what features have the largest impact on employee satisfaction, wellness and self-reported productivity with a goal to provide feedback and improve existing and future workplace design and building practices. The results of this “pre-move” study will be used in a future “post-move” study that compares the IEQ performance of these “conventional” workplaces to the employee’s new “green” workplace.

Faculty Supervisor:

Shauna Mallory-Hill

Student:

Armaghan Aslam Afghan

Partner:

Stantec Consulting Ltd.

Discipline:

Design

Sector:

Finance, insurance and business

University:

University of Manitoba