Is your office wearing you down? A conversation with Agnieszka Wąsowska

A beautiful office from a well-known design studio is only the beginning. Agnieszka Wąsowska believes an office should be a living organism: it needs to be observed, the people who work in it need to be listened to, and it needs constant adjustment. We talk about the psychology of space, the “statistical employee” trap and why the best changes to an office often cost nothing.

Agnieszka Wąsowska has spent more than 20 years managing offices for international corporations across many markets as a real estate director. She studies the psychology of space, writes the blog architecturepsychology.org and lectures on a postgraduate wellbeing programme at Kozminski University. This conversation is based on an episode of The Office Podcast (the episode is in Polish).

An office for the statistical employee

In the simplest terms, what is the psychology of space?

It studies the relationship between the built environment and people: how space affects us and how we feel in it. In Poland it is still a niche field. There is a lot of talk about employee wellbeing, and architects increasingly take it into account, but that is not the same thing.

Why not? A good architect designs a functional office, after all.

Because they design it for the statistical employee. The statistical employee looks good in the statistics, but they are not the one who then works in that office. A well-designed office is a good start. The psychology of space helps with what happens next, in the day-to-day management of the space.

Is it not possible simply to design the ideal office?

No. Research on the impact of space does exist, but it is carried out on small groups or in laboratory conditions, so it produces hypotheses rather than certainties. Above all, each of us is different. One person thrives in an open-plan office, another walks out exhausted after eight hours. I am a highly sensitive person myself: I pick up every sound, and in the office I work half as efficiently as I do at home.

How can an ordinary employee tell that a space is not working for them?

Fatigue is the signal. If you are worn out after a day in the office but not after the same day working from home, it is worth looking into. Simple mindfulness helps: stop and check what is distracting you. If people keep walking behind you, sit with your back to the wall. If it is noise, go to a quiet zone.

How to check whether people feel good in a new office

A company moved into a new 1,800 m² office three months ago. How can it check whether people feel good there?

First, I would ask whether anyone studied employees' needs before the move at all. Often nobody did: the space is simply maximised and the office is built the way the management board imagined it. I knew a CEO who was so taken with the fireplace in his home that he had an identical one installed in the office. Good practice is a survey before the move and the same survey afterwards, with questions on a scale from “very dissatisfied” to “very satisfied”.

When should the second survey be run?

Roughly six months after moving in. Before that, people rate the change itself negatively, even when it is a change for the better. We become attached even to an ugly old office. I have analysed at least 20,000 employee surveys over my career, and this is a certainty.

And if the results are poor after six months?

Then I turn to two techniques. The first is spatial mapping. Employees mark on the office floor plan the places where they concentrate well, where they rest and which they avoid. Once the responses are overlaid, for example by team or by floor, you get a heat map of how the space is really used. The second is in-depth interviews with a test group, ideally combined with a walk through the office together.

Companies now sign leases for as long as 10 years. Is one study enough?

No. An office designed for 10 years can stop meeting people's needs after just two, because the make-up of the team, the nature of the work and its dynamics all change. That is why I would make a short annual survey mandatory, together with conversations in different parts of the office. And one crucial point: you have to go back to people with the results. If nothing happens after a survey, nobody responds to the next one. A workplace manager who relies only on their own opinion, the management board and the handful of people who come forward with comments of their own accord sees a filtered picture, because not everyone has the courage to say that something does not suit them.

An office change that costs nothing

One thing a workplace manager could introduce tomorrow, at zero cost?

Surveys. Elements of the psychology of space are largely free: they require time and willingness, not budget. A study of waiting rooms in medical centres illustrates this well. When the chairs stood against the walls, nobody talked to each other. Placed directly opposite one another, they felt too confrontational. A 45-degree angle worked best: that was when people were most willing to strike up a conversation. Sometimes rearranging the furniture is all it takes.

With offices, there are no solutions that will please everyone. You cannot design a space once and for all for people who keep changing. What you can do is ask, observe and improve on a regular basis. The best office is like a playground. There is a swing, a sandpit and a climbing frame, and everyone finds something for themselves and is free to change their mind.