Ergonomic and individual workplace design has long been recognised as a key advantage in the competition for maximum employee motivation and dedication, no matter whether the workplace is a flexible desk in an open-plan office, in a comfortable two-desk office or a modern open space.
More and more employers have to cope with increasingly demanding employees, who prioritise a healthy work-life balance and now expect almost the same standards at their workplace as at home, in what is known as work-life blending.
Light has an effect on satisfaction in the workplace
Each specific working condition has an impact on well-being and performance. Light is a key factor in self-evaluation of a working environment.
‘Office settings’, a long-term study as part of the Fraunhofer Institute’s ‘Office 21’ research project shows how important the influence of light on satisfaction in the office environment is. Participants in the study rated workplace lighting that was too bright or not bright enough as a significant factor of influence, which has a major impact on workplace satisfaction.
The study, an online survey scheduled to run until 2020, also reveals that satisfaction with office design has a greater influence on the well-being and motivation than workplace flexibility. A satisfied employee, accordingly, is more motivated and performs better. The office environment is therefore an important area in which companies can act to influence employees positively. Of 922 participants in the survey, only 20 percent reported that they are quite satisfied with their office environment. The result demonstrates that there is an immense room for improvement.
Focus on health and individuality
Making workplace and office design both satisfying and attractive can be used to attract and retain qualified employees. A simple way to achieve this is by creating pleasant, healthy and standard-compliant lighting, made easy thanks to the state-of-the-art LED technology. As an added benefit, modern light solutions can also take the individual needs of each user into consideration.
The LUCTRA® lamp range offers a wide variety of options to fulfil lighting needs for individual rooms. The TABLE and TABLE PRO table lamps can simulate the natural course of daylight if needed. The installed LEDs provide different colours of light and can support the user’s different work phases in this way. They can also be dimmed. In the TABLE PRO variant, the app-based control helps users adjust the light to personal requirements. For flexible office designs and agile teams, the app saves individual light settings so that they can be re-applied at any other workplace that has LUCTRA®.
That makes the table lamps a good long-term option to increase satisfaction at the workplace. Users can adjust the light intuitively to their own requirements so that it guarantees ideal brightness without being intrusive.
Besides the table lamps, LUCTRA® offers VITAWORK, a floor lamp that is suitable for distributing light evenly to entire offices thanks to the combination of direct and indirect lighting. The LEDs built into the lamp head provide energy-efficient illumination via a light panel with either symmetrical or asymmetrical light distribution. VITAWORK® is available with three different light flux intensities, depending on the size of the room, for optimal adjustment to the room size.
In addition to the touch panel, a light intensity and a presence sensor can also be used to control the light. While the presence sensor responds to movements, the light intensity sensor continuously compares the natural daylight and the intensity of lighting inside the room with each other. The LED light of VITAWORK® adjusts itself automatically to achieve a consistent, high quality of lighting. The new LUCTRA® floor lamp fulfils the requirements of both the DIN EN 12464-1 standard and the German workplace ordinance ASR 3.4.
The LUCTRA® floor lamp therefore combines multiple advantages in a single light source. It provides ideal lighting to various spaces, helping to create a pleasant and conducive working environment. Thanks to its high-performance LEDs and sensor control, energy consumption can be reduced by up to 80 percent.
Positive impact of LUCTRA® light proven
A clinical study headed up by sleep researcher Dr. med. Dieter Kunz at Berlin’s St. Hedwig Hospital has proven that the light from LUCTRA® table lamps has a positive influence on performance and user satisfaction. (www.luctra.eu) The light ensures good visibility and thus effectively supports periods of high performance and rest. Participants in the study demonstrably felt less exhausted in the evening and were happier at the end of their working day.
That works because the lamps provide specific stimuli with different light colours (cold white to warm white). And this can be done entirely according to individual needs – controlling them via the touch panel or the app is child’s play.
About LUCTRA®:
LUCTRA® is the brand for good light in the office or at home. For this purpose, the table, floor and mobile lamps included in the range provide light which not only illuminates, but also makes people happy, more efficient and simultaneously less tired. This works, because it transmits the right impulses for every situation.
To accomplish this, the professional, biologically effective LED lamp system takes advantage of the latest scientific findings on the effect of light on human beings. It follows the principle of Human Centric Lighting, for short HCL, by focusing on human beings with their personal lighting needs for healthier and more efficient working and living. LUCTRA® light can almost perfectly simulate natural daylight and thus supports the user’s personal inner clock.
LUCTRA® has already received numerous renowned design prizes such as the German Design Award and was brought to market in 2015 by the long-established company DURABLE Hunke & Jochheim GmbH & Co. KG. This company has been dedicated to professional work for almost a century: to its organisation, its processes and its equipment. DURABLE currently employs 700 workers worldwide and has its Head Office in Iserlohn/Germany. All LUCTRA® lamps are assembled manually by expert staff at the LUCTRA® production plant in Kamen (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany).
About OFFICE 21® research project
Office 21 is a research project led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO) in Stuttgart, Germany. Together with industrial partners, they are studying how office and knowledge work will change in future and deriving recommendations for companies from their findings.
Office 21 research project was launched in 1996 and is divided into two-year research phases. The current phase started on 01/04/2018 and will continue until 31/03/2020.