Little shifts at work - meeting your sensory needs
For when you don't have full control of your work environment.
The gist of this post is:
People work and feel better when they have a choice about their physical environment at work.
There's no universal set of workplace environmental settings that will work for everyone - we all process information differently and have our own set of sensory preferences.
In lots of jobs, we won't have full control over our environment, and but we might be able to make the situation more manageable by making small adjustments.
Little shifts at work - meeting your sensory needs
This week I've been thinking about little shifts that you can make in your work life to make the physical environment work better for you. We'll look at these shifts through a sensory lens, because neurodivergent people often process information differently. I'll give you an example: Folks with ADHD often have difficulty regulating where their attention goes. So in a very busy or noisy environment, it can take a lot of effort to filter out ambient sounds to maintain focus.
As a general principle, it is helpful for peoples' wellbeing to be able to have some choice about the environment they work in, whether neurodivergent or not. The tricky thing here, is that there is a huge amount of variation in the level of autonomy and control that people have to choose or determine their own workplace sensory environment - the sensory environment meaning the stimuli we receive from our senses, such as the light levels, sounds, smells, temperatures, and textures.
Office jobs vs. other types of work
A lot of the advice about workplace accommodations focusses on office work, which is the kind of work I do at the moment. Arguably, this is one of the easier types of work to adjust, especially if you have a laptop and can work outside the office, and even more so if you're doing the kind of independent work that doesn't require you to be present at particular times.
But I can't help thinking about my past selves and workplaces - like my 20-year-old self who had a cafe job - something I enjoyed, but quite intense from a sensory point of view. And I had to take the shifts I was offered if I wanted to earn money. And the stint I did at a pulp and paper mill as an engineering student, where shifts had strict start, break and finish times, and working from home definitely wasn't a thing.
What I am getting at here, is that we can't rely on one-size-fits-all approaches, because individuals and workplaces will have different situations and needs.
What does the research say?
Sensory considerations are a huge part of design guidelines for neurodiverse workers. This can often look like preventing overstimulation, while providing an "escape space" to retreat to. In a recent book chapter, Day & Martel (2024) outline three principles for designing inclusive workplace environments for neurodiverse people:
Personal Control: Being able to change or shift the environmental stimuli to shift it to a more comfortable zone.
Wayfinding: Transition spaces between areas of significantly different levels of stimuli. This can include providing space (and time) to ‘prepare’ to enter a new space or ‘repair’ by reducing stimuli after exiting a space.
Safety and Recovery: Quiet rooms – spaces to go to reset and recover after being stressed by an over- or under-stimulating environment.
The evidence base supporting different types of workplace accommodations is still developing. However, there's indicative evidence that workers with more control over their environment stay in their jobs for longer and have better performance. And there's indicative evidence that reducing environmental stimulation (like reducing noise or visual distractions) can improve performance, length of time in the job, and health/wellbeing of workers (Weber et al., 2024).
Some little shifts to think about
Sounds
For those of us who find it difficult to filter out ambient sounds, open-plan offices can be overwhelming. I can relate to this one personally! Accommodating needs in this area can look like: wearing ear plugs or noise-cancelling headphones, seeking out more quiet workspaces for focused work, taking breaks from noisy environments.
Sight
This one is all about adapting the levels of incoming visual information. For example, is it possible to change the lighting levels, or move to a place that is brighter or dimmer? Another example is adjusting the amount of visual information coming in from around the room - I find that I can focus much more easily when there's a wall behind my computer screen, as opposed to a busy open-plan office with people moving around in my field of vision.
Rest and recovery
We might not always be able to adjust the sensory environment to our needs. In this case, it can help to build in time and space for rest and recovery. Research and guidelines talk about having a decompression or escape room available. Working from home can also provide opportunities to decompress in an environment that workers can tailor to their needs.
Sources and further reading:
Day, K., & Martel, A. (2024). Neurodiversity. Routledge Handbook of High-Performance Workplaces, 148-159.
Weber, C., Krieger, B., Häne, E., Yarker, J., & McDowall, A. (2024). Physical workplace adjustments to support neurodivergent workers: A systematic review. Applied Psychology, 73(3), 910-962.