First Look! 👀 The Untapped Design Secret to 10x Employee Performance with Kay Sargent

0:00The latest statistic is that it's one in five. When we started eight years ago, it was considered to be one in eight. Now it's one in five. I don't even think that's right. Our research is showing that it's probably far closer to about one in three, if not even higher. And I think in the UK right now, there is an eight year waiting list to get diagnosed for certain things. And so it's very, very difficult for a lot of individuals. and so there's a huge discussion about okay well how do we improve that or are there other ways to do that or why do we even care like why are we even putting labels on this stuff let's just acknowledge that we all are different even if you're neurotypical and by the way calling somebody typical has never been a compliment but even if if you are neurotypical every single one of us is being impacted by the built environment that we're living in.

0:55Light, temperature, sound. And so this isn't about the fringe group that is a minority. This is about sensory processing, cognitive well-being to maximize human performance so that everyone can thrive. Yeah. I'm really glad you brought that up so early on because that is actually something that I'm really passionate about as well in the sense that it's so often thought of this small minority group which a is not a minority group it's like you well I've never heard this one in three maybe higher but that sort of shows something and then secondly it's how everybody benefits which is what I think a learning piece that everybody needs to kind of see, I guess.

1:45Yeah. I think there's two sayings, kind of like if you design for the edges, you get the middle for free. Or when you design for the extreme, you benefit the mean. Every single one of us is going to benefit if we create environments where we have more control, options, and choices about the types of spaces that we're in. Yeah. Have you had any, because you've got like extensive experience in that, have you got any examples of when something might have seemed like a niche specialist thing for this neurodiverse group, but actually just turned out to be a huge benefit to absolutely everybody that was occupying the space.

2:26I could give you a long list, but let me just pick two or three of my top favorites. Focus rooms. Now it's almost like guaranteed that almost any space that you go into, but 10 years ago, those were kind of a novelty. You didn't really have that. And just this notion that every now and then we just all need to be able to cut out the noise and to be able to focus and concentrate. But I think we also need to realize that not everybody is hyper sensitive, a sensory avoider. There are some people that are actually hypo sensitive or sensory seekers. And sensory seekers may not want to be in a small confined box.

3:01They might need to move and fidget. They might want to be in a buzzy environment. Think about all those people that go work in a Starbucks. It's not because a coffee is so cheap, right or it's quiet it's because a lot of us actually feed off of being around the energy of other people and we need that and so we need to kind of create those balances but you know sound there's a lot of environments where we're putting in sound masking and about 10 percent of the population gets headache from white noise and can't handle that we used to think that having adjustable lighting was nice but there are a lot of people that get migraines and being able to be in a room where you can actually turn the lights off or down significantly can be really important for certain individuals.

3:49And just to give you a real live example, we designed ARIPS space in Birmingham. And we probably did this early, started on early in the pandemic. And from the beginning, we're designing for engineers. Okay. So they want to know why this and why that and you know all of us right so there's a science to what we do and so we really leaned into the whole thing about neurodiversity and it helped expedite the process because they could understand why we were recommending what we were recommending and so okay great we get it approved right so that expedited the process but we really thought about everything and we worked with their engineers to really think about the lighting and the acoustics and just all of the different things and the different types of space zones and how people are going to be using this space and how do we create, you know, introduce elements of biophilia, just everything.

4:40Every element of that space was intentionally and very specifically designed. And it won a bunch of BCO awards, which we're really, really proud of. And about two, about a year and a half ago, we were touring some folks and one of my colleagues was there and he came over and he was just really emotional. And he said, this gentleman just came up to me and he said are you the designer now you don't necessarily always want to know how you want to answer that question because if they have a beef that it's like you know okay here we go right but this gen he says yes you know we're the designers of the space and he goes i just want to thank you because i worked for this company for 10 years and i've never been able to be in the office because either the lighting or the humming the flippering of the the sound system or the lighting system and all those things really bothered me and I couldn't function.

5:31I said for the first time in 10 years, I've actually been able to be in this space without getting physically ill. And I've connected with my colleagues in a way I've never been able to, and it's been a total game changer for me. So thank you for that. And I will tell you, that's better than any award we've ever received. It has a real impact on people. And as designers, we have to acknowledge that if we believe the spaces we're designing have a positive impact on people, and we wouldn't be in this profession if we didn't, we also have to acknowledge that if we don't really understand the impact of what we're doing, it could have a negative impact.

6:10And in our game, like in our world, that's just not okay. No, no, no. What a beautiful story. So thank you for sharing it. Is it such a thing that someone can jump between hypo and hyper? Oh, yeah. I definitely think I'm that person. You can be hypersensitive to one thing and hyposensitive to something else. All of those elements are totally independent of each other. And you can, you know, other things can exacerbate the situation. So if I'm feeling anxious and I'm under a lot of pressure, then it can make some of those things even worse, right? So if I come in in the morning and I'm really anxious and I know I have this big deadline, it can make everything just heightened.

6:53But in the afternoon, I've done it. I've submitted it. It went great. I'm really excited. Now I get to just take a moment and breathe. And you might need a very different type of space later on. And so think about just as humans, our moods. Sometimes you're a great mood. Sometimes you're not, right? Sometimes things are agitated. Sometimes things are not. your environment. There's all kinds of things that are impacting us as humans. And we need to acknowledge that not only do we have a whole variety within ourselves, but just across the spectrum of people. And so this whole notion that I can design one space that's going to be right for everybody all the time, it's just so ridiculous that we need to break free from that.

7:37Yeah. You were going to tell me three spaces that you thought were the most eye-opening. You gave me focus pods. I'm definitely not letting the other two go. Yeah. So focus pods, the lighting, so the migraines, right? So having the adjustable lighting and then even just like having, giving people options and choices. Okay. So if you assign somebody, if you assign seats and you assign somebody to sit in a spot, I don't know any company that says, Guy, do you have any sensitivities? Are you sensitive to visual distractions, people walking by constantly?