Focus by Design — Workplace Implementation Insights
Corgan’s Research and Innovation team, Hugo, partnered with the University of Arkansas to study ADHD in the workplace through the AIA Upjohn Research Initiative. The study aimed to better understand in-office attention by relating people’s lived experience with measurable data on how the brain and environment interact.
Hugo’s Assistant Director, Melissa Hoelting, and Corgan’s Workplace Sector Leader, Emily Strain, discuss the top takeaways for office managers, developers, and designers.
Is this applicable across a broad group of employees?
Melissa Hoelting: Studying a specific population — like people with inattentive type ADHD — is helpful not just to people in that group, but those who don’t have an official diagnosis as well. A person who has difficulty focusing under even ideal conditions can act like a “canary in a coal mine,” revealing environmental factors that may also affect attention, performance, and wellbeing for many others. So, while the research begins with ADHD, its implications are broadly applicable to employees navigating today’s constant interruptions, sensory input, and cognitive demands.
Emily Strain: We know that modern workers face constant interruptions, between all of the pings, emails, notifications before you even get to environmental distractions. For leaders who are concerned about burnout, it may not only be workload — it could be an “inability to focus” problem caused or amplified by workplace conditions. You might spend all day at work trying to focus and end up burned out because you’ve been just spinning your wheels rather than making the progress you wanted to make. Even though the research group was people with ADHD, we see the findings as being applicable to anyone who has struggled to focus at work.
Was there anything that you weren’t expecting to find out?
Emily: The sit-to-stand desk finding really stood out because it reframes something people might think of as purely ergonomic as a tool that can also support focus and cognitive engagement. Standing isn’t just a posture change; it asks the brain to re-engage in a way that sitting doesn’t. That feels especially useful for organizations — many already have sit-to-stand desks but may not realize that they can be used as a focus tool. It would simply take educating employees on the brain benefits of that kind of intentional movement to tap into that benefit.
What can companies do that is high impact, low cost?
Emily: One of the things that jumps out to me as a solution is scent. It has a real impact on how people experience a space, but it’s often overlooked — whether that’s the cleaning products being used or a more intentional scent tied to focus, cleanliness, or memory. It’s also something companies can test and adjust with little disruption.
Melissa: Scent is a strong example because, although it is not free, it can be a practical investment, especially for organizations that expect to remain in a space for several years but want to make a change in their existing space. Beyond scent, companies can often make meaningful gains through targeted, low-disruption adjustments — such as reducing distractions along high traffic areas by installing screens or a change management campaign targeted at increasing utilization of alternative spaces already provided.
Were there areas that call for further exploration?
Melissa: One area where we didn’t get clear results is acoustics. People who used the acoustic hood did focus better, but the hood also blocks your peripheral vision, so it was hard to separate the impact of the acoustic effect from the visual boundary it created. That opens up opportunities to isolate and test those variables more intentionally, as well as explore other interventions we haven’t tested yet, such as music.
The bigger opportunity is to take this research into real workplaces with real employees. We’d like to work with organizations to pilot potential design strategies before they are implemented in an upcoming project or measure an existing space to understand how its current design performs and how it is actually used day to day. That would help us move from controlled testing toward understanding not only whether an intervention works, but for whom, under what conditions, and how people engage with it over time.
What does success look like for an organization that implements these design strategies?
Emily: Success will not be static. We’ve seen the nature of work change over the years — not just with hybrid and remote work, but with increased connectivity in the age of email and instant messaging and constant updates. The challenges that we see workers facing now will continue to shift, especially as AI is incorporated into some workflows. Success is often a change management issue: designing the space is only the first step. Ensuring employees feel comfortable and empowered to adopt the changes is a separate — and necessary — effort.
Melissa: Exactly, I think the key to success, or what a successful outcome will look like, is individual employees being empowered to do what works for them. Across so many facets — lighting, movement, visibility — our results show variable impact; what works for one person might not be effective for another. So, success depends on both the organization making smart interventions for their staff and their offices and on individual employees taking the initiative to find what helps them focus.
