What is salutogenesis and how can it keep employees healthy in the workplace?

Business performance is influenced by the impact of the workplace environment on staff motivation and ability. We intuitively sense that space and mood are connected.

This is supported by substantive evidence linking levels of concentration and alertness to lighting and colour. The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. 

What is salutogenesis?

Health at work can be strengthened and promoted by implementing design that is salutogenic.

Aaron Antonovski, who coined the term 'Salutogenesis' - from the Latin salus meaning health and the Greek genesis for origin - believed that there is an important relationship between the physical environment and an individual’s 'Sense of Coherence' (SOC).

We understand this commonly as “keeping it together’ in face of adversity and it manifests itself, when facing challenges, through:

• Manageability - the availability of resources and a supportive network
• Comprehensibility - intended as a comforting backdrop that offers order and familiarity 
• Meaningfulness - understood as the inspiring realisation that there are important ‘phenomena’ in life and nature.

The ideal spatial framework for salutogenic design translates into three key components: welcoming spaces for meeting and social exchange, familiar spaces for orientation and reassurance and quiet spaces for meditation and restoration. 

The aim of this kind of psychosocial supportive design is to stimulate the mind in order to create pleasure, creativity, satisfaction and enjoyment.

There is an important relationship between an individual employee’s sense of coherence and the characteristics of the physical work environment.

While Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is often one of the main factors affecting productivity at work, workplace design is mainly perceived as a matter of furniture and finishes selection. There are however imperceptible factors which dramatically improve comfort at work.

A good environment is one that balances the need for calm and reassurance with constructive stimulation of the senses. An ideal workspace is hence a function of two types of need - need for positive stimulus and need for calm and stability.

• On the one hand, familiarity is important as it breeds self-confidence and directly supports the employee’s 'Sense of Coherence'. In spatial terms, recollecting and recognizing are about making crucial information obvious, concealing the unnecessary and offering multiple clues; in this sense the office becomes a roadmap.

• On the other hand, stimulus is beneficial as it stirs emotions and triggers neurological activity. In spatial terms, the work environment would ideally offer a variety of spaces, in size and character, internal and external, all benefitting from good quality air and light. Paradoxically, Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) of workplace interiors is often determined by engineering standards, rather than by health criteria. 

What is truly important when specifying and designing an IEQ workplace is a deep understanding of how our senses interact with the physical environment when we’re coping with work.

In the context of workplace design this translates into a design that caters for needs associated with all five senses:

• Sight - light, colour and views. We know that full spectrum lighting promotes learning and growth. In absence of sunlight, melatonin tells the body to ‘switch off’, while daylight resets circadian clocks and metabolises vitamin D. Sunlight releases serotonin. Colour provokes hormone release that affects mood, mental clarity, energy levels and body systems. It can help assist the identification of, or alternatively conceal where appropriate, environmental features such as rooms, doorways or service areas.

• Hearing - sounds and noise. Deterioration of hearing interferes with one’s ability to think. Good sound insulation and absorption prevent competing noises and allow enjoyment of pleasant sounds, which are proven to be analgesic and to lower blood pressure and heart rate. Noise affects attention, memory, problem solving and decision‐making

• Touch - texture and temperature. Sensitivity diminishes with age as dermis loses softness and elasticity. A varied choice of textures can provide both stimulus and soothing comfort. Plants absorb airborne toxins such as formaldehyde, benzene, carbon, monoxide and trichloroethylene.

• Smell – odours and aromas. Memory of smells lingers on longer than that of visual images or sounds. Floral and fruit fragrances have been proven to lower blood pressure, slow respiration, relax muscles and increase alertness. Floral and fruit fragrances aid concentration, slow respiration, lower blood pressure/heart rate and relax muscles.

• Taste – sweet and sour. The sense of taste diminishes with age and is affected by drugs, poor nutrition, tooth decay and disease. Offering “taste sensations” at carefully located cafes as part of a morning walk, helps restore the pleasure associated with food. Good food and drink improve nutrition, increase energy levels, give pleasure and reduce allergies.

By analysing temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide levels as well as any contaminants, it is possible to optimise levels of comfort and hence staff effectiveness.

Treatment for illnesses and health conditions that are influenced by the indoor environment, is a considerable cost to employers, accounting for approximately 14% of all annual health insurance expenditures.

Familiarity is important as it breeds self-confidence and directly supports the employee’s 'Sense of Coherence'.

Productivity loss may result from absence from work, but is more often due to reduced effectiveness on the job. In total, productivity losses from building-related health problems are equivalent to more than 10 days per employee per year. 

Eight international case studies demonstrate that providing individual temperature control for each worker increases individual productivity by 0.2-3% and similarly identify a 19% reduction in headaches for workers with separate task and ambient lighting, as compared to workers with ceiling-only combined task and ambient lighting.

Comparative studies of day-lit offices demonstrate 10-25%, performance gains, 5-10% reductions in SBS symptoms, and over 30% energy savings. 

Recommendations for designing for optimum air and light include the following:

Air

• Maximize natural ventilation

• Separate ventilation air from thermal conditioning

• Provide task air for individual control

• Ensure pollution source control 

• Improve the quality and quantity of outside air

• Allow individual access to operable windows to reduce energy use, absenteeism, SBS symptoms, and improve productivity.

Light

• Maximize the use of daylighting without glare

• Separate task and ambient light

• Select the highest quality lighting fixtures

• Design plug-and-play lighting and dynamic lighting zones

A positive, even joyous, sensorial experience of space is becoming a key requirement of offices. The decisions that lead to good workplace design will be the outcome of a balance between four factors which are determined by comfort conditions employees’ demand. 

These are:

1. Psychological

2. Emotional

3. Physical

4. Physiological

Designing a sensory experience, whether it is calming or exciting, therefore means designing from the inside out, that is, from the responses that employers hope to elicit from their staff.

A good environment is well balanced, beautiful and reflective, using colour, texture, light and sound to overcome cognitive dissonance. It brings about a sense of coherence, at an individual and company level, when its design is based on an understanding of emotional as well physical needs.

As such it acts as an holistic environment through supporting emotional, social, physical and mental wellbeing; enhancing involvement co-workers and partners by providing a sense of meaning and purpose; creating an open feel through connections with Nature, daylight, air, time and seasons; and finally, be legible and intuitively simple to navigate through offering natural orientation, familiarity and recognition.

Ultimately, however there's no great secret at work in designing an IEQ workplace.

It is defined by positive qualities: light, space, openness, intimacy, views, connectedness to nature – the opposite of a standard-issue office. It is intimate in scale, centred on a hub, a place where you can make yourself a cup of tea and have an informal conversation.

We understand that the synergies and tensions between the different drivers of workplace are unique to each organisation and in varying proportions depending on company culture and values.

Our aim is to highlight, describe and balance the cultural, commercial, physical and technological attributes that are the fingerprint of your organisation in order to develop a strategy that forms the backbone of a fluid, symbiotic relationship between space, infrastructure and people.