Critical indoor environmental factors affecting productivity: perspectives from university staff and postgraduate students

Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) of buildings plays an important role in affecting building occupants' comfort, health and well-being. However, there is limited understanding of the critical IEQ factors that affect occupants' work productivity in university office buildings. By surveying 204 people (72 university staff members and 132 postgraduate students) in a tertiary education institution in New Zealand, this research aimed to identify and rank the critical IEQ factors concerning their perceived productivity and how the perceived importance of these factors differed between staff and student cohorts. Statistical analysis identified a total of 16 IEQ factors as important in affecting work productivity, and 15 of them, except cleanliness of the office, could be grouped into four categories: (1) thermal comfort and lighting; (2) acoustics and privacy comfort; (3) spatial comfort and (4) aesthetics and views. Based on the identified critical IEQ factors, a framework was developed and can be used by building facility managers and designers in the tertiary education sector to optimize design solutions to improve building performance that is more conducive to their occupants. The findings from this research can inform the inclusion of design features that will enable staff and students using these buildings to achieve better productivity.