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9
Environment
reducing absenteeism. Biophilic changes made to
a workplace can reduce absenteeism over a long
period of time, reduce complaints that drain human
resource productivity, and help retain employees
over many years. Unnecessary and avoidable
absenteeism should not be disregarded financially.
In 2010, the US Department of Labor reported an
annual absenteeism rate of 3% per employee—or
62.4 hours per year per employee lost—in the private
sector. Therefore, an employer will lose $2,074 per
employee per year to employee absences. Across
twenty employees, the same company will lose over
$41,000 in salary costs. The number is even more
dramatic in the public sector. The reported average
absentee rate for the public sector is 4%. With over
83 hours lost to absences per year, an employee’s
absence costs $2,502 per year (US Department of
Labor, 2010). In a large organization, this translates
to millions of dollars lost to absenteeism. In all
sectors, efforts to reduce absenteeism by even a
fraction of a percent through the implementation
of biophilic design can yield substantial financial
benefits for an organization.
The potential for building design to cut human
resources costs is highlighted by a recent study of
an administrative office building at the University of
Oregon (Elzeyadi, 2011). The building is an effective
laboratory for testing the biophilia hypothesis:
30% of the offices overlook trees and a manicured
landscape to the north and west, 31% overlook a
street, building and parking lot to the south and
east, and 39% of the offices are on the interior of the
building, offering no outside view at all. The building
occupants are a mix of administrative offices,
with no hierarchical placement of departments or
employees within the floor. When asked to rate
scenes according to their preference, the building’s
occupants heavily favored the vegetated views
over the urban views, and either view over none at
all. These preferences did not merely increase or
decrease workers’ happiness; researchers found
that the quality of employees’ view from their office
significantly affected how they behaved at work.
Employees with the views of trees and landscape
(north and west) took an average of 57 hours of sick
leave per year, compared with 68 hours per year of
sick leave taken by employees with no view. When
placed on a continuum, employees with an urban
view ranked between the other two groups, in terms
of both preference of view and sick days taken. When
view quality was combined with lighting quality and
window area, architectural elements explained 10%
of the variation in sick leave days taken. Furthermore,
the study found the quality of a person’s view to be
the primary predictor of absenteeism. The study
also examined where people spent their breaks,
and found that employees with better views were
likely to spend more time at their desk. Employees
with urban views or no views at all were more
likely to spend their lunch breaks walking around
or in another part of the building. These findings,
taken together, indicate that people’s access to
natural scenery is significantly correlated to their job
satisfaction, health, and productivity.
Studies show that there is a marked difference in
peoples’ reactions to natural scenes versus sterile
office environments. In a test of 90 participants
investigating heart rate recovery from low-level
stress, three groups of 30 participants each were
exposed to one of three conditions: a glass window
with a view to nature, a plasma screen with a high-
definition view of the same setting as the glass
window, or a curtained wall. The restorative qualities
of the view to nature were significantly higher than
both the plasma screen and the curtained wall, both
of which yielded equally low physiological recovery
patterns. Once again, the results support Attention
Restoration Theory (ART), suggesting that nature
promotes recovery from mental fatigue. It appears
that Nature in the Space enables better focus,
mental stamina, and productivity— behaviors that
benefit workers and employers alike (Kahn, 2008).
Furthermore, the results of this study highlight the
importance of dynamic nature, such as moving
water and trees swaying in the wind. Whereas
static nature, such as potted indoor plants and
artwork depicting natural scenes, is measurable
and preferable to no exposure to nature at all, the
benefits of dynamic nature elicit the most positive
physiological responses. Movement in nature
evokes associations across all human senses,
rather than just visual stimulation. As a tenet of
human psychology, we thrive on this sensory
interaction with life. Thus, dynamic nature serves as
the best strategy within biophilic design to provoke
the optimal physiological response.
The outcome of this study was not a coincidence;
there exists a physiological connection between
humans and nature that explains why human
attention is neurologically restored. When individuals
attempt to focus, there is a neurological restraint
that instructs the brain not to be distracted or
stimulated by other items or tasks—a function that
requires a great deal of energy. Attentional fatigue
results in environments where this focus is difficult
to achieve, causing stress to slow the heart rate and
breathing while simultaneously rousing digestion
to raise energy levels. The combination induces
lowered concentration and decreased effectiveness
(Maas, 2011). This means that we get bored with
visually unstimulating spaces, and, rather than being
a distraction, nature serves as a source that renews
our attention, reinstating cognitive functioning with
natural elements that invoke affective responses.
PRESENTEEISM
The results of poor indoor environments also have
financial implications in the form of “presenteeism.”
Presenteeism describes the phenomenon in which
workers clock in for work, but are mentally removed
from the workplace, causing labor-related financial
losses for the company. Presenteeism can result
from sleepiness, headaches, colds, and asthmatic
drain, if air supply is poor. Presenteeism costs
employers in the private sector $938 and employers
in the public sector $1,250, per employee per year.
For a company with 100 employees, this equates
to over $100,000 lost per year in unproductive time
at work. Providing access to natural daylighting,
outdoor views, and natural ventilation can reduce
eyestrain, relieve mental fatigue and return workers’
attention to their work.
Although many studies have examined the effects
of daylighting and views to the outdoors, the
integration of plants and greenery into the workplace
also results in productivity gains and reduced
psychological stress (Bergs, 2002). Green space in
an office increases productivity in a range of ways,
and increased productivity has a significant impact
on overall operating costs.
Economically, the value of a view to nature has been
quantified. Strategic seating arrangements at the
