Environmental Factors ’ Effect on Stress Reduction of Employees : A Case Study on Farhangian University Staff in Tehran

One of the most important issues the contemporary societies encounter is the job stress. There are various factors affecting it, but not enough researches have been done on the role that environmental factors play. This paper presents an experimental study with 100 participants on the influence of environmental factors on employees’ stress level. This method uses information derived from field observations and answers to questionnaires distributed to employees and officials who are in the top management of the central organization of Farhangian University, Tehran branch. The results demonstrate that color, window, lighting and brightness, landscape, communications and interactions, flexibility, thermal convenience, noise convenience, cleanness, physical activity, privacy and accessibility play an important role in the stress of employees, suggesting that the architectures and designers should consider the aforementioned factors so they can create dynamic and pleasant office environments devoid of any stress.


Introduction
The role of labor in the production process and providing service is known as the most important phase of workload (Huang et al, 2016: 250).The role of labor has evolved from a simple workforce to human capital during modernization, as the technology advancement lacks any efficiency without labor evolution.Labor constitutes a set of people with numerous needs, willing to leverage their skill and abilities in order to contribute to the organization, provided that their needs get to be fulfilled, hence having enough motivation.Employees not performing at a satisfactory level might cause the company to face staggering problems in achieving its goals and fulfilling tasks.So meeting their spiritual and materialistic needs and also laying out an exciting atmosphere at work are of utmost importance which potentially increases the effectiveness of employees in the organization (Safarzade et al, 2011: 2).
The proper employment of laboras a manifestation of the most invaluable and biggest asset of any societyis under the radar of governments, in fact, it can be articulated that human is both the development goal and its driving force, and the fulfillment of the development goals significantly hinges on the way this critical asset is managed (Pedram, 2011: 20).The loyal and happy labor, compatible with the goals and values of the organization, willing to contribute to it beyond the specified tasks, can be an essential factor in the efficiency of the organization.(Jahromi, 2009: 9).Such a labor brings an enhancement to the performance, lowers the costs, improves the communications of organizations, reduces the wasted time and is reluctant to leave the work and being absent (Beadles II et al 2005: 39).
Being one of the destructive forces in the working environments, job stress can cause physical, mental and behavioral side-effects, jeopardizing his or her health, threatening the organizational goals and putting a damper on the service quality and the performance of the individual (Miller, 2000: 55).It's been close to 100 years since the inception of investigating the stress concept, but the initial investigations have been done in the medical field (Khanifer, 2009: 18).From medical standpoint, stress is defined as the "amount of physical exhaustion".
From the various types of stress, job stress is one of the most prevalent phenomena in the working environments which have interpersonal relationships (Gueriltault-Chalvin et al., 2000: 150).This kind of mental pressure, is a stress which a specific person experiences in a certain job.Therefore, it can be concluded that investigating job stress is of importance due to two reasons: 1. Neglecting it can have devastating effects on the power of labor in an organization.2. If the occupations stress gets to have no proper revision, it can affect the performance of employees negatively and make them to be less satisfied (Roelofsen, 2002: 250).
Job stress embodies different dimensions, including: Ergonomic factors, incompetence, role being incompatible, role ambiguity, relations with the supervisor, relations with coworkers, physical factors, chemical factors and biological factors (Khanifer, 2011: 10).Majority of researches suggest that having improved physical environments can result in 5 to 15 percent increase in the efficiency and performance of employees, hence the progress of organization (Clements, 1997: 495 & Lorsch, 1994: 896).In this research, we explore the physical factors affecting the stress reduction of employees in organizations.

Literature Review
Randall Ross and Altmaier, categorize the various factors causing occupation stress in 6 groups: The role features, occupation characteristics, the organizational structure and atmosphere, organizational management methods, technology and physical factors.In their book, in addition to describing each one of the mentioned groups and the ways to prevent them, they define the physical factors of the working environment stress as "the physical conditions the individual has involved in" and go further to say "regarding the physical variables, stress occurs when the bare minimum of physical safety and living conditions have not maintained".They define these physical factors as light, noise, temperature, physical activity, polluted air and ergonomic factors, and regarding light factors, they mention the insufficient light or the intensity of that as examples.Yamini & Hasanzade, in addition to the said elements, have taken the decoration and spacing into account, making a meaningful connection between them and stress (2015: 1).Monazzam et al (2011: 42) concluded that thermal stress lowers the efficiency of the individual and increases the work errors, decreasing the quality and efficiency of system.
O 'Neil et al (1993: 890), suggested that controlling the environment can affect the satisfaction and productivity directly and can affect the distraction, privacy, stress, interactions and communications indirectly.Huang et al (2004: 617), have also suggested that increasing the control of employees on their working environment can make them to change based on their needs and desires, hence they can be more comfortable and less stressful.
Majority of the office researches indicate that window and lighting affect the productivity, satisfaction and happiness of the people and lower their stress level stemming from work load (Flynn, 1977: 6).Aries et al (2010: 533), demonstrate that the view of windows can increase stress and dizziness, hence lowering the efficiency and productivity, and being close to a window or absorbing light beyond the standard amount can also have a negative impact.
Increase in efficiency, decrease in unfortunate events, high level of mental sharpness, and increased level of satisfaction are of the consequences of having adequate light in working environments that Luo (1998: 4) mentions in his research.Of course, researches indicate the preference to using natural light, as Markus reports (1967: 60) that approximately 96 percent of the respondents prefer to be exposed to natural light rather than having artificial ones in their working environments.
Researches indicate that there's a relation between the human health and the surrounding environment, so using the natural environment can increase the well-being of people and decrease the stress level and contribute to the reconstruction.(Grahan, 2010: 270).There are different opinions and approaches to this.For instance, one can mention the Ulrich Stress Improvement theory, which suggests landscape lowers the stress, while city environments negatively impact the stress improvement (Velarde, et al., 2007: 200).Gorji and Ahangar (2012: 61) investigated the color effect on hospital environments and concluded that employing proper coloring in different medical centers is an essential factor in the improvement process of patients.This can also positively impact the personnel of the hospital and people accompanying the patients.Emami and Hamidian reached to the conclusion that occupation stress of employees has a lot to do with the physical working environment, mental stress stemming from noise pollution, headache due to the air and noise pollution, air pollution in the working space and their residency area (2012: 147).Kuma et al (Fani et al, 2012: 25), in order to increase positive emotions, did a research and concluded that interacting with friends and creating a friendly passionate atmosphere, successful experiences and appropriate working environment can be important in growing emotions and creating happiness in the working environment.Generally, majority of researches show that cheering up employees would go a long way in lowering the stress of them.O 'Neil et al, in 1993, explored the relation between private territory and the satisfaction and stress level of employees.The results show that the privacy and the feeling of being watched has a meaningful connection with the stress level of employees.
Steptoe & Boiton (1988: 100) believe that sports decrease the exhaustion, stress, anxiety and depression, and increase the energy.According to Biddle & Mutire (1991), sports can also improve self-esteem and finally, will result in more happiness.Jegen & Chevret (2016) use a questionnaire called GABO in order to investigate the factors affecting the convenience of employees, which in addition to the aforementioned variables, comprises of cleanness.
Therefore, considering the track record of well-known studies and researches, the environmental factors affecting the stress and their variables can be categorized in the following table (Table 1):

Inquiries and Hypothesis
The current study's question is that "which one of the environmental factors is effective on lowering the stress level of employees?"and "how the environmental factors can be used in order to lower the stress level of employees?"Also, "Is the level of job stress differ in men and women?" and "Is the education level can have an impact on the job stress?"

Sample
This research uses the analytic-descriptive method.This method uses information derived from field observations and answers to questionnaires distributed to employees and officials who are in the top management of the central organization of Farhangian University, Tehran branch (Fig. 1).
This study is done as the employer decided to understand how can increase organization's productivity and efficiency by improving physical and environmental conditions and how environmental factors can influence on employees' stress level.Figure 2 shows some of the employees' offices and their conditions.

Data Analysis
In the present research, in order to analyze the gathered data, descriptive statistics and perceptual statistics have been used.As the Table 2 shows, from the delivered questionnaires, 47 percent of the studied population are men and 53 percent women.Variance analyses is also shown in the Table 3, there is no discernable difference between the two genders and the sig value equals to 0.084.Table 4 shows the number of respondents in terms of educational level.Unlike the previous case, in statistical analysis, a meaningful difference between job stress and the level of education was observed and the null assumption rejected, in fact, the higher the education, the less satisfaction of the working environment and higher level of stress is there (Table 5).After the descriptive analysis, for analyzing the affectability of the variables from parametric tests, we consider H0 as the normal data assumption and H1 as the non-normal data assumption.When investigating the normal assumption, we test the null assumption at 5% error level.Therefore, if we get a higher result, there will be no reason to reject the assumption.Now, by using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test we have (Table 6):  Also, the determined variables can be prioritized by the aid of average and standard deviation tables, which is shown in the Table 8.

Discussion and Conclusion
Today, the mental pressures imposed on human in the "anxiety and mental stress" age, makes the need to finding solutions for preventing the factors which cause stress and anxiety such a crucial one.This research aims to investigate and analyze the role of environmental factors on lowering the stress level of employees in working environments.To this end, first, studies have been done on the various theories regarding stressas one of the destructive stimuliand its effects on the different aspects of people's life and also, the role of environmental factors on stress reduction, and the domestic and foreign researches regarding this issue were explored.These studies show that experts put an emphasis on the role of environmental and physical factors on the stress of people and speak of elements specific to this issue.
Then, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed among the employees of the central organization of Farhangian University of Tehran.The results show that, based on the chosen statistical society, there is no discernable relationship between stress and the gender and the situation is the same for both.But, between the education and the level of stress a meaningful relationship was found, meaning that the higher the education, the less satisfaction of the working environment and higher level of stress is there.
According to the findings, there is a meaningful relationship between all the color, window, light and brightness, landscape, interactions and communications, thermal convenience, noise convenience, flexibility, cleanness, training and body movement, privacy and accessibility factors and stress, meaning that if these factors are not designed properly, people will have stress and this in turn will cause lower efficiency and productivity and so many other devastating effects.These results demonstrate that designers and architectures should care about the effect of the aforementioned factors when designing the work environments and should look for ways to improve them even further.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.The location of selected company on map

Table 1 .
The list of variables and factors

Table 2 .
Data Frequency to Gender Variables

Table 3 .
Correlation Analysis between Gender Variable and Stress Level

Table 4 .
Data Frequency to Educational Level

Table 5 .
Correlation Analysis between Educational Level Variable and Stress Level

Table 6 .
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test resultsThe Table7shows a meaningful relation between the research variables and the total factors resulted from the HSE questionnaire, which is acquired by the Anova test.In this table values lower than 0.05 show a positive impact on the stress level of employees.As all the variables show a meaningful relation, it can be perceived that environmental factors are effective in lowering the stress level of employees.

Table 8 .
The mean and standard deviation of variables