Mayo revisited

Citation

(2012), "Mayo revisited", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 61 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2012.07961baa.003

Mayo revisited

Article Type: News From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 61, Issue 2

I read the following and immediately my thoughts turned to the experiments of Elton Mayo (the “Hawthorne” studies of the 1930s) where made changes to working conditions – including lighting – and observed the changes in performance and productivity …

Sensors that follow workers’ movements, lights that monitor and adjust to natural sunlight levels, and dynamic walls of colour are just some of the new technologies that are now available to New Zealand workplaces.

These new technologies bring threefold benefits: significant energy and cost savings, new tools for design professionals to create innovative and creative spaces, and improvements in the health and wellbeing of workers, which in turn improves productivity and morale.

Lighting makes up 40 per cent of the energy used in offices and new lighting technology can bring significant energy savings. Philips has found on projects in Germany and the United Kingdom that lighting energy savings of up to 70 per cent can be made when energy efficient lighting is combined with systems that recognise light levels outside and identify when individuals are working in a space and adjust the interior lighting accordingly.