Illustration by Mary Haasdyk Vooys

All work occurs in a place, and the debate about where and what that place should be remains contentious. Workers are making more conscious choices about where to place themselves — be it in a home office or bedroom, at the local cafe or coworking space, in transit on the train or in a hotel, or in a traditional office in the city. This is for good reason: Where you do your work matters, because without you even knowing it, places are anchoring your career and shaping your sense of self.

Drawing from our theory of workplace identification, which integrates research on environmental psychology, organizational behavior, and workplace design, we offer insight into how you might consider and shape the physical landscape of the workplaces you have available to you in ways that can help you become your best self at work.

The Form and Function of our Modern Workplaces

Workplaces are comprised of several elements that impact our ability to function effectively, connect with others, and simply get work done:

• Functional: Physical attributes that facilitate our work
• Sensory: Lighting, sounds, smells, textures, colors, and views
• Social: Opportunities for interpersonal interactions
• Temporal: Markers of our past accomplishments or future aspirations

But our workplaces are more than just a collection of contextual characteristics that fill in the backdrop of our work activities. Workplaces are important because they both reflect and unwittingly shape our professional identities — who we were, who we are, and who we aspire to be as workers. Our identities become intertwined with our workplaces as we accumulate milestones, memories, and life-shaping experiences in them.

Can you vividly remember your first workplace that housed important professional relationships or your first tough boss? Do you have “your spot” in a local coffee shop where you hide away to get things done? Do you scatter about artifacts, pictures, and decorations to make your cubicle, desk, or office “your own” in some sense?

Places shape us — and we in turn shape them — because they can satisfy various identity motives, such as our fundamental needs for a “home,” to feel belonging and acceptance, to learn and grow, and to have a sense of continuity over time and coherence about who we are. In this process, our sense of self becomes embedded in the contexts in which we work, and we carry our workplaces with us as part of our sense of self. Conversely, just as a workplace can help us realize our best self, so too can it frustrate our efforts, leaving us feeling unmoored and stagnant. With these stakes in mind, here’s how to intentionally craft a workplace where your best self can thrive.

1. Audit your current workplace(s).

For each place that you conduct work in — at home, at the office, or in another place — consider how you experience its dimensions and what parts of you they relate to. Most importantly, consider how these dimensions make you feel, what they allow you to do, and who they allow you to be.

Take some time to jot down answers to the following questions that can set you on the path of more intentionally shaping your place(s) of work:

1. What is your overall sense of this workplace? How do you feel viscerally when you enter it? For example, does it bring you a sense of calm? Does it make you anxious? Does it energize you? Distract you? Focus you?
2. How does your workplace influence task completion? Are you functioning efficiently and effectively? Are there physical/social barriers to your task completion? Does it facilitate how you change tasks as you move through your day?
3. How does your workplace impact social relationships? Do you feel connected and respected? Isolated? Do you feel a sense of belonging or outsideness?
4. Does your workplace reflect your professional journey? Does it remind you of where you’ve been (and the progress you’ve made)? Does it allow you to picture your goals for the future?

2. Evaluate the personal meaning of place elements.

This evaluation requires introspection. Looking at your answers to the audit, consider if and how your physical surroundings reflect and enable who you want to be at work. Which identity motives does your place satisfy — or not? What parts of your identity does it enable or stifle? Do you feel seen in the way you want to be seen? Do you feel excited about who you might become in this place, or does it lock you into a past version of yourself that you’re trying to shed? Are there aspects of your environment that feel incongruous to you?

For example, if part of your identity is “nature lover,” you may feel most aligned and productive in a workplace where you can see or interact with greenery (even in pictures). Conversely, at some points you might feel disconnected from your best, more creative self because your office is in the middle of the city and makes you feel trapped in a concrete jungle.

Then, imagine your ideal workplace. What parts of you from your past, present, or ideal future will it reflect? When you think of being a team leader, being creative, or being collaborative, where do you picture best expressing and living these identities? Perhaps you can connect with different parts of yourself in one workplace, or you might realize different parts of yourself through a collection of multiple workplaces.

For example, the Zurich office of the Swiss-founded company On is specifically designed to help employees activate and live different parts of themselves, all in the same building. The decor inspires connection to nature, to movement and health, as well as modernity and innovation. Their office floors are grouped into themed “neighborhoods,” with each having a dedicated “village square” floor for gathering and connecting. Other floors are designed for collaborative work, while others are specifically crafted for individual, focused work.

Look forward: Brainstorm some ways you want to grow, what parts of you might need attention and “space,” and how your various workplace(s) can help you achieve that. Based on the categories in the previous section, where do you see opportunities for improvement? Using an identity-based approach to evaluating where you are now and where you want to be will help you focus your placemaking efforts.

3. Act.

Engage in placemaking to shape your place to better reflect who you are and who you want to be. Can you work with the dimensions of your current workplace, or do you need to find new ones (e.g., a home office or other space) that can help you better achieve your identity motives and goals?

Although every workplace has various constraints, there are almost always ways of at least making tweaks within them. For example, maybe you don’t have a private office at home but can negotiate do-not-disturb times with your family. Or, if you work in an open-plan office, maybe you could move to a cubicle away from the busiest areas and use noise-canceling headphones.

Here are a few placemaking ideas:

Personalize your workplace.

Organizations can be places for social inclusion or exclusion, depending on how they signal alignment between who we are and who the organization is. By personalizing your workplace, you can make space for yourself in your organization.

For example, you might shape your workplace with inspirational identity markers like awards or diplomas or with artifacts that bring back warm feelings of nostalgia, such as a treasured photo of your old team. These markers can help you to feel more integrated and seen at work.

Alter your use of your workspace.

If you’re stuck on a problem or feeling lethargic and uninspired, it may be a signal that you need to work in a different place for a few hours a day. Research suggests that subtle shifts in environment such as ceiling height or natural elements can often stimulate a different type of thinking and influence your well-being.

Sometimes we need more than one place to address the needs of the multiple hats we wear at work. For example, you could just move to a different part of the building for a bit to trigger a different part of yourself. Perhaps you prefer a place that allows solitude for tasks that require precise thinking and calculations whereas a more energized, communal environment feels better for tasks that require more creative thinking. You may find that expanding your sense of your workplace by routinely rotating spaces helps you get your portfolio of different work tasks completed more effectively.

Find the right sort of connection through your workspace.

Maybe working from home has left you feeling isolated. While you might enjoy the quiet, focused time (as it allows you to tap into one part of yourself), you can satisfy your need to feel a sense of belonging by spending one day each week at the office, or even working in a busy coffee shop for a few hours.

You can also consider how you can architect the social landscape of your work by changing when and how you interact with others. Who do you engage with when you’re taking your morning coffee? How do you connect with colleagues when you have a question or a “big idea” or need some advice on a tricky problem? Have you signaled your accessibility, perhaps by leaving your door open if you have one and periodically wandering around to visit others?

Architect your boundaries.

In the 24/7 workplace, we can sometimes feel pressured to always be “on.” The constant connection to work can overwhelm our senses and keep us trapped in a work self. Our physical landscape and how we use it offers us the opportunity to create, reinforce, and manage desired psychological boundaries between the roles we hold — like being a parent, worker, or member of a rock band.

Boundaries between places that house your selves can help you recharge and be your best self when you’re at work. For example, is there a place you can shape where you have no access to your work, so that you’re able to shed that work-self and allow another valued part of yourself to flourish? This type of physical boundary setting can be vital for recovery from — and future engagement in — your work.

. . .

The past few years have encouraged us to revisit many assumptions about our lives, including the state and function of our workplaces. More than ever, it’s clear that our workplaces both shape and reflect important parts of ourselves, impacting our performance and well-being. While there are clearly limits to the places we have available to us for work (and our agency in making them “ours”), there are always at least small opportunities to engage in placemaking. Take this opportunity to consider whether your workplace is working for you.