Occasions: Enhancing the psychological well-being of office workers through smart building technologies

Abstract

Over the past few years, workplaces have placed increasing importance on enhancing well-being. The benefits are clear: increased productivity, improved employee engagement, and reductions in health care costs. Another recent development has been the rise of smart office buildings. MAPIQ, a system integration company, is an active player in the smart building ecosystem, and has hosted this graduation thesis to investigate how smart building technologies can be applied be to effectively enhance well-being in the workplace. The research phases of the project identify an opportunity to enhance psychological well-being by stimulating the creation of specific workplace relationships. Consequently, a feature for a mobile application is proposed to bring candidates for such relationships together at a particular time for a particular occasion. The concept is evaluated as being relatively complex, but also as having good desirability and good potential to help Mapiq reach its vision. The thesis makes clear that applying smart-building technologies to build relationships at work is effective in enhancing well-being and in guiding a smart-building system integration company to achieve its strategic objectives.