Surveying the

Workplace

Lindsay T. Graham, Ph.D.

Center for the Built Environment

University of California, Berkeley

Typical office building costs in $/sf per year

Annually, people costs are 2 orders of magnitude more than energy costs

The cost of people in buildings

Spaces have the potential to influence how

a person thinks, feels, and behaves.

Interviews Focus groups Observations

Evaluation methods – focus on surveys

Why surveys?

• Allows for large

sample sizes

• Quick

• Cost-effective

• Access to internal

thoughts, attitudes, &

hard to detect

behaviors

Not all surveys are created equal

• Easy to understand

• Lacking jargon

• Clear & concise

• Targeted desired goal

• Relatable to audience

• Unbiased

Good surveys are …

• Reliable– consistently

measuring the behaviors

we want to be

measuring.

• Valid– accurately

capturing the perceptions

and behaviors we are

examining.

• We can have reliability

without validity– but we

need both.

Our measures must be:

It’s important to define what “productivity” means to you.

How can you tell if you’re being productive?

Define

construct

Write

items

Test-run

survey

Check

psychometrics

Survey construction

It takes time to create quality surveys

• Set points for

participants to react

to

• Participant fatigue

• Reliability

• Validity

• Multiple participants

• Helpful to have point

of comparison

• Powerful occupant survey analytics platform

• Developed in 1999 based on industry need

• Used in over 1000 buildings with over 100,000 occupants

• Data set includes valuable building characteristics data

• Tools include multiple building types and a range of options

David and Lucile Packard Foundation HQ –

EHDD

DPR Headquarters

CBE Occupant Satisfaction Survey

Overall building

Overall workplace

Acoustic quality

Air quality

Cleanliness &

maintenance

Lighting

Office furnishings

Office layout

Thermal Comfort

What does it measure?

Cliff Bar Headquarters

UC Berkeley Energy Biosciences

Building Ohio State Wexner Medical Center

Expansion (HOK)

• Offices

• Higher ed

• K- 12 schools

• Laboratory

• Healthcare

• Multi-unit residential

Building types

Get Feedback

Learn what’s working from

the occupants’ perspective

Benchmarking

Compare your buildings

against an extensive

database of other buildings

Diagnostics

Branching questions help

diagnose the reasons behind

disatisfaction

Evaluate

Evaluate energy solutions,

design approaches,

technologies

Inform

Make improvements in

operations and the design of

future buildings

Get Credits

Adopted by LEED, ASHRAE,

and WELL

Why use this tool?

• PG&E

• David Lehrer

• Gail Brager

• Jessica Uhl

• CBE Research Team

Questions?

Lindsay T. Graham, Ph.D.

LindsayTGraham@Berkeley.edu

Check us out on the web:

www.LivableAnalytics.com

Thank you!