Effects of office environments and workplace change management on mental health

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse the effects of office design (material, ambient environment and socio-spatial factors) and workplace change management on mental health and well-being and work engagement. Design/Methodology/Approach: Six organisations with naturally occurring changes of the office environment participated in the study. Four organisations implemented activity-based working and two organisations moved and centralised to modern office buildings. In a longitudinal design with a control group in each of the organisations the effects of the office environments before and after the change were measured using surveys and expert assessments of the office designs. The change management process was documented and data on end-users’ experiences were collected through “pulse-checks” (short questionnaires that were used several times during the change process). A total of 1386 office users participated in the study; the longitudinal sample consists of 617 datasets. Findings: Longitudinal comparisons of means show that the office environment change had different effects on employee wellbeing, health and work engagement in the different organisations. Longitudinal regression analyses show that office environment factors explain 1-8% of variance in different measures of mental wellbeing and about 4% of variance in work engagement. In each organization, different influencing factors in the office environment and of the workplace change management seem to be important. Further results showed that the evaluation of the office environment and the change process by experts does not correspond to the perception of the employees. Therefore, the objective evaluation of office environments and change processes seems not be suitable in order to infer from this well-being, health and satisfaction of the employees. Practical implications: Results show that workplace changes may have positive or negative effects for mental wellbeing, depending highly on the context. Therefore, thorough pre-change analyses regarding employees’ needs, work activities and the organisational context are essential for the development of future office environments. Originality/value: The originality of the study lies in the topic (deep analysis of mental wellbeing in relation to office environments and workplace change management) and the methodological approach with a longitudinal study of 6 office environment changes