Indoor environmental quality in the era of hybrid work: comparing home and healthy office environments

The shift toward hybrid working has increased the importance of understanding the environmental quality of home-based workspaces in comparison with professionally designed healthy offices. Indoor environmental factors such as air quality, thermal comfort, lighting, and noise are known to influence human health and productivity, yet systematic comparisons between these two settings remain limited. This study aimed to evaluate the home working environments relative to a healthy office. A repeated-measures study design was employed in which 67 participants experienced both home and controlled office conditions, with continuous objective monitoring of indoor environmental quality parameters and parallel subjective assessments. Results showed that home environments exhibited significantly higher levels of carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds (p < 0.05). Lighting levels were also significantly lower and more variable in homes (p < 0.05). Among the environmental parameters, lighting demonstrated the strongest negative associations with satisfaction, whereas pollutant levels were not significantly related to perceived air quality. The study contributes new evidence on the quality of home workspaces relative to healthy office environments and underscores the importance of objective measurement and thoughtful design strategies to support health, comfort, and performance in evolving work arrangements.