In this episode, Jayne talks to workplace design expert Kay Sargent who discusses the critical role of workspace design in preventing burnout and enhancing productivity in hybrid work models. Kay emphasises the importance of understanding organisational culture and sensory intelligence to create environments that accommodate individual and collective needs.
Kay shares insights from her extensive research on how different forms of sensory stimulation impact well-being and offers practical strategies for designing flexible and inclusive workspaces. The conversation also explores the challenges organisations face in transitioning to hybrid work models and the importance of leadership and clear communication in achieving successful outcomes.
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Here's the full transcript:
Jayne: Season 3, Episode 10, Hybrid Workspace Thought Leadership, with Kay Sargent. Our workspaces play an important part in bringing people together. People attract people, says Kay Sargent, Global Director of Workplace Thought Leadership for HOC who I'm delighted to have as today's guest. In this conversation, Kay and I delve into the fact that when workspaces aren't designed with organisational culture at front and centre, and they aren't considerate of our onboard sensory intelligence, then the results can be environments that are also not conducive to our best independent or collective working.
People need choices, options, and the ability to power up with the people they work with. People being with people is a key amenity to their business, says Kay. Poor workspaces can contribute to burnout and when it comes to creating hybrid approaches that actually work, the spaces we offer need to be given careful consideration.
Space alone can't solve our problems, but space design is an important part of the puzzle. So listen in to learn more.
Okay, so I'm here with Kay Sargent, and I'm so excited to be speaking with you today, Kay. I really enjoyed a conversation that we had a few months ago when you spoke about workplace design and the considerations that your company had taken in terms of how to make places inclusive for all and how what actually suits the minority is often beneficial to the majority.
And so I'm really, really keen to get stuck in today and talk about how the design of spaces really can impact on us in terms of our wellbeing. And the reason this kind of call came about was because I'd shared with you how sometimes when I've worked with clients and they've been off work for a while, it will start to surface that there's actually something about the physical environment that is holding them back from integrating and going back to work.
And so I'm, yeah, keen, keen to dive in with whatever you would like to get your teeth into first.
Kay: Love it. Excited to be here. I do believe as a designer of 40 years that the spaces that we are designing can have a positive impact on the individuals. But if I say that I also have to acknowledge that if we're not designing them well they can have a negative impact.
And unfortunately, there was a lot of bad space that has been designed, because over the last several years it's just been this exercise of people have to come into the office, let's get as many people in as we can. You know, that's kind of power forward, but I think what the pandemic did is it gave us a good swift slap across the face to realise that the way that we work is becoming unsustainable, just the hours, the time, everything, and that people now have a much more heightened understanding and sensitivity to the built environment, a better understanding of that.
I think we always have. And I find it so interesting. But the conversations typically are around productivity and burnout and engagement and satisfaction, but the root problem for all of those things is sensory stimulation, either too much or too little. And our ability to process that and that can vary significantly for different individuals so understanding that, and how that is impacting us is absolutely key to cognitive well being and then business outcomes.
Jayne: You conducted various studies into that, didn't you, into the different forms of stimulation that are beneficial and beneficial to some, and then forms of stimulation that are detrimental to some and not to others and how places can be set up to accommodate with flexibility in mind and choice and options.
I wonder if you could speak a little bit to that.
Kay: Sure. So we've done multiple studies over the last eight years. I think we've written multiple reports. I think we have conducted several surveys, several workshops, qualitative and quantitative assessments. And we have actually three in the work right now.
And I just got some findings that I'm so excited about from one of our latest workshops and surveys that we did. But I think what this is all building to and what we're really starting to have a much more comprehensive understanding about is the fact that sensory stimulation is impacting everyone much more acutely than I think that we were aware.
And I think there are people that are individuals that are hypersensitive meaning they can't take too much stimulation and then there are others that are hyposensitive, and it can vary from age it can vary from gender, it can vary from your neurotype. Even if you're neurodivergent, if you're ADHD or if you live with autism, there are differences about how you respond to the built environment and stimulation.
And there's a great saying that says, if you've met one person that's autistic, you've met one autistic person. And that is so true. And I think what we found is that we really need to have a much better understanding of how the space and the elements within the space is impacting individuals.
And then design options, variety and choice so that people can naturally navigate to things that are effective for them. And there's a lot of misunderstandings too. Yeah, I think some of the misunderstandings have been around, all open environments are bad. There's a lot of poorly designed open environments, but they're not all bad.
Ones that are designed well that can give you options and choices and address the sensory simulations can actually be highly beneficial. And when we think about what types of spaces people want, not everybody is comfortable in an enclosed environment. In fact, more people are bothered by being in an enclosed space than they are by being in open spaces.
And the answer isn't necessarily make everybody go work from home because there are a lot of people who need the energy of being around other people. They need the guidance, they need the stimulation, they need the direction. It can be very lonely. It can be very isolating. The highest level of burnout we had was during the pandemic when people were all remote.
So we have to find a balance. We have to find the sweet spot. And that means that we have to stop oversimplifying workplace solutions. And stop with the one size misfits all approach.
We need to create varied settings and we need to really have a better understanding of what people are doing and how the space is impacting them.
Jayne: Yeah I know that for many organisations post pandemic there's been a push and I'm even noticing that the use of that word coming to my mind and how that can then viscerally feel in response to that word, but a push for people to come back to office spaces. And it's whilst the space is important and I think some organisations don't even recognise that yet.
And I'm hopeful that this conversation for those that come across it might be the starting point for considering that. But there was an article you wrote that was in Work Design magazine and it was called 'Set up for Failure'. And I felt that you hit the nail on the head in terms of people come back because they're attracted to being with other people and we will all have different needs around how much time we would like to be in the presence of other people and in what way we'd like to be around other people, but ultimately people need people. And during the pandemic, whilst working from home might've suited some and suited many for different varying reasons, as you said burnout really went through the roof and I think in that period, one of the contributing factors was loneliness. And so absolutely I think there's a need for being around other people and coming back to a workplace is something that actually could, they could be drawn to rather than pushed into.
If some of the other aspects are given consideration that maybe would be putting them off that and so spaces is obviously one of them and you go into all the other contributing things that also need to be given consideration. I know we won't have time to go into all of them, but you mentioned about policies, for example, and messaging and cultural elements and operation strategy.
And I'm recognising in what you shared about the hypersensitivity or heightened sensitivity for some people, there will be a hypersensitivity, others hypo, as you alluded. But what is really interesting to me is when somebody has been through burnout more often than not, they do have this much sharper awareness in themselves of what they can't tolerate anymore.
What was there in the background and actually once was a contributing factor to that burnout that they were overriding and not aware of in the run up to burning out, but then post burnout, it becomes so obvious to them. It's like a big, bright red flashing light that they know they can't go near or they can't be around. It's fascinating and I'm wondering in organisations that are looking to either draw people back or push people back whatever approach they're taking, from your experience with these last few years and all the different studies and your experience of bringing in different approaches and considerations, what are the key things that an organisation that's forward thinking and really taking this on board, what do they most need to focus on to get this right for their teams?
Kay: Yeah I'm going to say that I think a lot of companies are going to get it wrong before they get it right because hybrid working, which most companies have pretty much adopted to some degree is really more of an operational model than just a workplace solution, and I don't think companies are really putting in the hard work that they need to really think about how do we retrain our managers to manage by performance and not presence and how do we onboard people and how do we connect people to something bigger.
I think, quite frankly, at the end of the day, the decision about do we come in, do we let people work remotely, what is the right mix between all of that, it's actually far simpler than we've made this out to be. First of all, we need to understand that different types of jobs in different industries are going to have different responses, right?
This is not a binary choice, all in, all out. Right. I think the very first question that people should be asking themselves is what does my job actually require? Yeah. If you're a lab worker, in a service industry, a facility manager, or someone who is place dependent, the answer is pretty obvious where you need to be.
Okay, if you're an independent researcher and you work by yourself, or you're doing heads down, concentrated work, or you're writing all day, again, you may not need to come into an office, right? What is your job actually require you to do?
The 2nd question I think that we need to ask is what do our clients need from us?
The 3rd line is what do our colleagues need from us? And this is where other remote working programmes before Covid and before the pandemic went off the rails. There were multiple successful programmes. But they all went off the rails because people started thinking about, do I want to wake up and put on pants and drive to the office today?
No, they weren't necessarily thinking about what do my clients need? And what are my colleagues need? And for instance, if you're telling your younger employees that they need to come in because of mentoring and professional development, but then the senior people are all at their beach houses are working remotely, you're not there for your colleagues, right? If your colleagues are having to cover your meetings because you've elected not to come in that day, they're going to get resentful really quickly, and it's going to start creating silos and problems and issues. If your clients need you to be at meetings, but you're saying, Hey, I'm not coming in that day, or they're not available, that's a problem as well.
So we need to connect ourselves to something bigger than just our own personal desires. Not that those aren't important, but that isn't the overriding overarching thing. We all have jobs because we have a mission or something we are trying to accomplish. And when you think about what do we actually really need to do and where do we need to be to do that.
Now, for some, again, that could mean you don't have to go to an office every day. But you might want to because you're the type of person that thrives in those kind of environments, or you just like the energy of being around other people. We need to understand that it's complicated. And people that keep saying " oh, you work from home, you can concentrate, you don't have the distractions", ask any young mother with children how she feels about that. Or ask people that live in an apartment with two roommates. I think we've oversimplified this and over glamorised the ability for everybody to work remotely. And it isn't necessarily the right thing for everyone.
Jayne: Yeah, I I think it's really interesting this concept of the simplifying some things, and then how we've oversimplified in other areas. And finding the sweet spot. Yeah.
How do you begin the process when you're working with an organisation and you're looking at the problems they may be experiencing, where they'd like to be say 12 months down the line, and then you look at that gap in the middle and what needs to be reconstructed or thought about or redesigned and whatever shape or form that takes?
How do you go about that?
Kay: That's a great question because we just totally redesigned our entire process. So designers have approached something I think very fundamentally very consistently for a long time and it's even baked into the art piece that we respond to: do a visioning session, do schematic design, do tech, like it's very regimented about how we do this. But basically in a sense, we can't go to our clients anymore and say, "Hey, where do you want to be in five or 10 years?"
They don't even know where they are today, let alone where they necessarily want to be. And so we have to help reframe what is even possible. We need to help them understand there's a variety of things here that you need to be thinking about. And let us help you. We're the experts, right? For a lot of our clients, there's so much information out there and there's so much conflicting information that their heads are spinning.
And so what we try to do is bring clarity. These are the issues that are important. This is what has changed. This is how space can be impactful. And where are you now on these things and where do you want to be? So we start identifying the gaps. So if we know where you are and where you want to get to, then we can chart a map to that.
Then we start to think about, all right, so who really are understanding your organisational DNA.
Jayne: Yeah.
Kay: Understanding your personas, what are people actually doing, and then mapping that to the right work points and the right types of gathering spaces. Rows and rows of benches, and the largest rectangular tables we can throw into conference rooms with the maximum number of chairs and a little screen, it doesn't cut it anymore.
Jayne: Yeah.
Kay: And so we have to really think about designing fit for purpose.
And to do that, we have to have a much better understanding of who it is that we're designing for. And so as designers who have always embraced the art of design, we are now wholeheartedly going in and meeting with the science of design, because there is a science to design, and then applying that. And when we do that, the answers start to become pretty obvious.
Jayne: I imagine those conversations must be quite fascinating. I can't help but think of coaching conversations and how often people don't know where they're at when they reach out and want things to be different. They don't actually know where they're at in the first instance, let alone, as you say, where they want to be in five years time.
And it sounds so similar in a sense whether it's an individual or an organisation and whether they're coming because they're looking at the culture and what's going wrong in the culture or whether they're looking at the space and these things are so interconnected. I'm really curious about how you go about that DNA stocktake. How you surface, how are the systems of the organisational settings actually feeling? How are they experiencing the landscape or the setting that they're operating in as it stands? How do you begin that?
Kay: So it's about having the right questions, I think, and it's about really having a deeper dive.
Everybody is looking for answers somewhere else. They're not thinking about who they are, right? So we help them really, truly address who you are. And just the organisational DNA, there are, we would say, six strands of a company's organisational DNA.
Jayne: Right.
Kay: That make up and help to define who you are.
So it's what industry are you in: a law firm is going to be very different than a tech company is going to be different than a sales company, right? Then regional influences, whether you're in India, New York City, Texas, London, very different. Then you think about who is my demographic? If you are trying to appeal to 20 year olds right out of college versus retired military, very different demographic.
And you think about what are they actually doing? What are the work styles? Are they sales and consultative? So they're in the field. Are they individual analysts? Are they researchers, are they accountants, right? So just even by saying those things, you can start to imagine what people are doing, and you start to see the differences between some of those things, right?
Jayne: Yeah.
Kay: Then we start thinking about what is your culture? Because the workplace should be the physical embodiment of that culture. And then the thing that people often forget is what is your organisational structure? If you're a very hierarchical organisation, being put in a flat space probably isn't going to be very effective. If you are an adhocracy where everybody is equal, everybody is responsible for something, but nobody's responsible for everything, isolating individuals is also probably not going to be reflective of who you need. So the space should literally be supportive of all of those other things that you do so even just knowing who you are in those six categories.
Jayne: Yeah,
Kay: can start to make the answers, start to crystallise and refine what the right solution is going to be.
Jayne: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think it must be fascinating taking people through that process and then revealing to themselves more about themselves. So I feel for so many, whether it's organisations, individuals the pandemic, there was this sort of survival mode that people were in, where it was just about doing the next thing that needed to be done to keep everything afloat. And then as people start to find their feet and address the kind of current state of affairs for themselves, it's then working out, as you say who actually are we, or who am I?
Now that I'm here in this moment in time and recognising that what was working once before is now no longer working, but what do we actually want instead? I'd never thought on that before in terms of the organisational structure and then the actual physical metaphor of that in a physical setup sense.
So as you suggested, like a hierarchical organisation, a flat setup not working, it needs to be like an embodiment of the business and all the different aspects of it.
Kay: Yeah. Can you imagine a military organisation on a law firm, just sitting all, everybody sitting in rows and rows of benches?
In some that are very progressive and, on one side that might actually work, but, for most that are the traditional model of it, it doesn't necessarily really work. So what I find fascinating is how so unaware self unaware we are not only about our own sensitivities and just how we respond to things. Our sensory intelligence is like zero.
But then our understanding of our organisation, our culture, things like that, when we have these conversations, it seems so easy, but half the debate is who are we? What are you writing? And really understanding such as them saying, yeah, this is exactly who we are. And this is it.
And companies that have a very clear understanding of who they are tend to really forge ahead because everything around them supports that. You may not like the message, may not like what Elon Musk says, but he makes it very clear what the expectation is. And so it's the companies that are ambiguous about it or in the grey that I think is problematic.
And I don't think people actually have as much problem with change. I think what really bothers people is transition and ambiguity. And if people don't understand what are we really trying to do here, what is the clear message or they don't really want to acknowledge it, I think that's a huge challenge and it's always an interesting conversation.
When people are stuck in an extruded transition, we weren't really ready for everybody to go home, but basically within a few days it happened.
Jayne: Yeah.
Kay: If somebody would have said to us, okay, like in January or February of 2020 "okay, on March 15th, we're going to send everybody home". The amount of time that would have been spent thinking about that, preparing for that, the committees, the this, that would have been unbelievable, right?
The prep time, etc. But when push comes to shove, and we had to do it, we actually did it pretty quickly. We didn't have a choice. And then we adopted. Now, is that 100 percent ideal? Probably not. But you absolutely can change when you need to. Sometimes it's when you're just in this extended transition.
And what we're finding now is the companies that ripped the Band Aid off and, figured out what they wanted to do and did it, whether it was 100 percent remote, or we're bringing people back in, or a combination, they didn't have the hiccups that companies who have continually changed, rethought or shifted are.
And I think we're going to look back on this and we're going to say that this was an epic failure of leadership and communication. That we did not clearly tell people what was happening. And you said earlier about, the benefits of being in the workplace. There are many benefits of being together.
There are benefits of being remote. We need to clearly articulate what those are when we make a decision about what it is. And so when some of these leaders have gotten up and said, I want everybody back into the office and they've been challenged on why, and they can't answer that question.
Jayne: Yeah.
Kay: That doesn't bode well.
And so I really think that we have got to connect people. If you give people a reason and everybody's in it together and you apply things fairly, people will adjust.
Jayne: Those are really interesting observations and insights from what you've observed, of the conversations you've had, the things you've implemented, what you've noticed about organisations that have made it work and the ones that haven't, or have struggled to get there.
I'm wondering just as we bring this wonderful conversation to close, and for anyone who's listening who can relate in themselves to this sense of the heightened sensitivity to the workspace and is feeling anxious about going back in and being able to contend with the environmental side of the workplace that they recognise wasn't beneficial to them and was a contributing factor for their burnout.
What would you say to those individuals?
Kay: Okay, so I'm going to, I'm going to say two things. Number one, I want you to channel your inner child.
I want you to remember. At the end of summer, when you were going back to school and it was like, no, I can't believe summer is over. I'm never like, it's going to be horrible.
And it took a while to get back in sync. But once you got back in the flow and that rhythm, you actually enjoyed being with your friends and doing these activities, et cetera. And so again, it's the transitions that tend to be the hiccups. Now I will say that I do believe, because people have been working in isolation, and studies have actually shown this now, that we have heightened sensitivity to sound.
And that being in the built environment, our tolerance is less. But the problem in many built environments today, it's not that it's too loud, it's often too quiet. Because the background noise and hum that actually balances everything out and gives us a feeling of energy and flow and mass some of those sounds is now gone.
So I think what we need to think about is being an advocate for thinking about how do we design spaces better. And how do we not just patch the space and a lot of people say "just put on headphones" there's all kinds of ramifications. We believe as designers that we should be able to design the space and or make adjustments to existing space that will aid in helping people be able to function in that. Whether it's giving you the option and choice to move away from something that's bothering you, whether it's adding acoustical elements, whether it's introducing soundscaping in the space, a whole variety of things. And I think there's much greater awareness about this and people are becoming much stronger about advocating for what is important to them or even just saying, this is bothering me.
Are there options or how can we address this?
Yeah. It's amazing to me literally how we suffer through and I'm going to give you an example of this. We had a round table the other day, and we were in a room that tended to get very hot, so they opened all the windows, but there was a construction site about a block and a half away that had a jackhammer, and we all sat there for the first half an hour.
It's do we want to sweat, or do we want to listen to a jackhammer? And it was a horrible choice, but we all just muddled through it, but we were all suffering because it was so distracting and just such a difficult thing to deal with. And finally, then we just closed all the windows.
And we, nobody sweated to death, we were all fine, but it's just amazing how much we tolerate because we don't think there's a viable option or choice. And the answer is there usually is, we just need to identify it and advocate for it.
Jayne: What an amazing note to end on in terms of recognising what's been tolerated and then realising that there's choice and that we often need to voice what it is we then need and then find ways collectively to do something about that.
Thank you so much, Kay. There's been so many thought provoking insights that you shared. I'm sure anyone listening is taking so much away from this conversation. I'm sincerely grateful for your time today. Thank you.
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