Recently, Woods Bagot’s Shanghai invited Dan Ariely, professor of Psychology and Behavioural Economics at Duke University, and founder of research group the Center of Advanced Hindsight, to a roundtable discussion with end users, big data providers and other consultants in an effort to understand what makes employees care about their work.
In his research, Ariely had designed a series of experiments to better understand what makes them more efficient and unlock the roots of intrinsic motivation and the conversation focused on the impact of behaviour-oriented design on workplace well-being in multiple scales including urban design, architectural design and interior design.
According to Woods Bagot principals Ian Png and Billy Ip, since the office is an extension of one’s home, and most employees tend to spend a majority of their time in the office, they need better design.
Ariely shared his theories and experiments about employees’ tendencies in a working environment. He believes that rather than paying cash bonuses, companies should reward their personnel by giving them insights, trusting them, challenging them to increase employee engagement and employee performance. His theory enables a lot of companies to make the better-informed decisions, especially in regard to Human Resource Policies.
“Innovation requires new knowledge, no matter [if you are a] behaviourist, big data analyst, or designer, we all try to improve the human experience with our expertise. Cross-discipline opportunities give us new ways of thinking to explore new design methodology,” Pearl Huang, director, said of the presented research.
