Boosting Workplace Well-Being through Nature

Anthony C. Klotz, PhD, Shawn T. McClean, PhD, Junhyok Yim, PhD, and Joel Koopman, PhD

We spend more of our time than ever indoors—in cars, homes, offices, stores, and schools. While many of these indoor spaces are pleasant and comfortably climate-controlled, the amount of time we are in them differs from that of our ancestors, who spent most of their waking hours outdoors. As a result of close contact with nature, our predecessors formed a positive connection to the natural world that remains within us. Thus, spending time in an environment outside of our sterile offices, schools, and homes remains invaluable to our mental and physical health. And still, many of us could use a reminder of this, as we often have a hard time leaving our comfortable, indoor environments for even the smallest amount of time. Especially for those of us who work indoors, our jobs make it even more challenging to spend time in nature. Doing so can seem like a luxury amid the demands and stresses of our hectic lives that we simply can’t afford. 

Various public health, environmental psychology, and architecture researchers have demonstrated the many benefits of nature on a person’s well-being. Research that has examined these effects on workers has placed heavy emphasis on incorporating natural elements such as plants or outdoor break areas into the workplace. However, we believe that there are equally effective ways for employees to reconnect and benefit from contact with nature outside of their work days.

The Workplace and Nature

Although various studies across diverse academic disciplines have demonstrated the benefits of connecting the environment to the workplace, not all workers have the ability to access nature during their workdays. We propose, though, that almost all of us have the ability to access nature outside of our work lives, during our personal time. Moreover, there is reason to believe that spending time in contact with nature during personal time will have benefits for employees when they return to work. We predicted that these beneficial effects will be strongest for people who have a strong, innate sense of a connection with nature or, as we refer to it in our study, nature connectedness. Our hypotheses centered on the idea that time spent in natural environments after work in the evening will boost the way people feel and think in ways that will boost their productivity when they return to work the next day. 

Our Study

To study the relationship between nature connectedness, evening nature contact, and work performance, we conducted three studies that tested our hypotheses with diverse methods. Our research focused first on whether contact with nature affected two mechanisms. The first is positive emotions and the second is psychological depletion. Does evening (after work) exposure to nature tend to enhance next-day positive emotions and reduce next-day cognitive depletion for employees?

We also recognized that these effects might vary according to each person’s level of connectedness with nature. It seemed reasonable that some people would experience higher levels of emotional and cognitive restoration of personal resources if they felt more connected to nature.

In all three studies, results consistently supported the idea that contact with nature has positive effects on our emotions, which fuels greater effort at work the next day. The level of connection individuals feel with nature was found to enhance the extent of benefits from such contact after a workday: those with higher levels of nature connectedness experienced greater restoration, while those with lower levels experienced insignificant gains. Participants’ perspective on nature and its role in their life seemed to be a significant factor in the level of benefits possible. However, the studies did not find similar magnitudes of benefit for cognitive depletion. Although post-work contact with nature helped limit the depletion of cognitive resources during the following workday to some extent, it was not a significant effect. The takeaway is that time spent in nature after work is worthwhile because it boosts our mood, which can help us perform better at work the next day. These effects were strongest for employees who feel especially connected to nature. 

Real Estate Implications

Real estate firms are like any other business in which employees face various family, social, or work-related stressors. Like other workplaces, there have been efforts to incorporate natural elements into the office so that employees can feel more at peace with their environments rather than suffering the effects of a stark, bleak office of earlier times. With our study in mind, we demonstrate that incorporating nature into work can be taken a step further by enabling employees to schedule it into their daily lives. We show that, based on an individual’s felt connectedness to nature, more time spent outdoors will have positive effects on how people feel and how they perform at work. This is a logical conclusion since the majority of individuals tend to feel a sense of peace and calm in a natural setting compared to the numerous distractions of man-made environments. With this in mind, we propose that real estate agents prioritize spending time in natural environments after work. And moreover, when dealing with properties that have access to good outdoor spaces such as gardens, backyards, and parks, real estate agents can share with clients how such spaces can facilitate their mental, physical, and work-related well-being and happiness.  

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Recommended Reading 

Klotz, Anthony C., Shawn T. McClean, Junhyok Yim, Joel Koopman, Pok Man Tang (2023), “Getting Outdoors After the Workday: The Affective and Cognitive Effects of Evening Nature Contact,” Journal of Management, 49, 2254-2287. https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063221106430

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About the Authors

Anthony C. Klotz, PhD
Associate Professor of Management, University College London
Dr. Anthony C. Klotz (PhD – University of Oklahoma) conducts research primarily on the different ways that employees resign and the causes and effects of different resignation styles, studying how and why employees balance their good deeds and bad deeds at work, and exploring how contact with the natural world affects employees. He has published his research in outlets including the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, and Personnel Psychology. Dr. Klotz is known for his prediction of a major pandemic-related labor shift that he coined the “Great Resignation” and has discussed his prediction on various media outlets such as the New York Times, BBC, and NPR, among many others.

Shawn T. McClean, PhD
Assistant Professor of Management, University of Oklahoma 
Dr.  Shawn T. McClean (PhD – Texas A&M University) has his research focus in organizational behavior and human resource management. He additionally focuses on leadership, work/non-work interface, and factors that drive employees to engage in unethical behavior. Dr. McClean has published his research in various management journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management, and the Academy of Management Annals.

Junhyok Yim, PhD
Assistant Professor of Management, City University of Hong Kong
Dr. Junhyok Yim (PhD – Texas A&M University) studies leadership, non-work to work interface and performance management. He has published his research in journal such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Journal of Management. Dr. Yim has also been featured in the Harvard Business Review.

Joel Koopman, PhD
Associate Professor and TJ Barlow Professor of Business Administration, Texas A&M University
Dr. Joel Koopman (PhD – Michigan State University) has research interests in organizational justice, self-regulation, employee well-being, and research methodology. He has published his research in various outlets such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

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