Accommodating new ways of working: lessons from best practices and worst cases

Abstract

Purpose -This paper explores which factors may explain the high or low percentages of satisfied employees in offices with shared activity-based workplaces. Design/methodology/approach -The paper compares data on employee satisfaction from two cases with remarkably high satisfaction scores and two cases with significantly lower satisfaction scores (total N = 930), all of the same organisation. These cases were selected from a database with employee responses to a standardised questionnaire in 52 flexible work environments. In the four case studies, also group interviews were conducted. Findings -Overall, there are large differences in employee satisfaction between cases with, at first sight, a similar activity-based office concept. The main differences between the best and worst cases regard employee satisfaction with the interior design, level of openness, subdivision of space, number and diversity of work places, and accessibility of the building. Employee satisfaction shows to be influenced by many physical characteristics of the work environment and by the implementation process. Satisfaction with the organisation may have an impact as well.Research limitations -Almost all cases regard Dutch organisations. Due to the lack of quantitative scales to define the physical characteristics of the work environment, the study is mainly descriptive and explorative and does not include advanced multivariate statistical analyses. Practical implications -The data revealed clear critical success factors including a supportive spatial lay-out to facilitate communication and concentration, attractive architectural design, ergonomic furniture, appropriate storage facilities, and coping with psychological and physical needs such as privacy, thermal comfort, daylight and view. Critical process factors are the commitment of managers, a balance between a top-down and a bottom-up approach, and clear instructions on how to use activity-based workplaces. Originality/value -The study connects descriptive research with inductive reasoning to explore why employees may be satisfied or dissatisfied with flex offices. It is based on a combination of quantitative survey data from 52 cases and a closer look at two best cases and two worst cases based on qualitative data from interviews and personal observations. The study has high practical value due to the integral approach that incorporates many items of the physical environment and context factors like the implementation process.

Towards a holistic assessment of employees’ acceptance of innovative workplace designs

“…Employees have resorted to: reserving desks (occupying workspaces even when not present to use it) Mosselman et al, 2009;Tagliaro & Ciaramella, 2016a, 2016b; arriving early to occupy their favourite workstation Voordt, 2004b); and personalisation despite the workplace policies (Brunia & Hartjes-Gosselink, 2009;Tagliaro & Ciaramella, 2016b). As a result, some employees have reported an under-provision of popular workspaces (Brunia et al, 2016;Kim et al, 2016;Tagliaro & Ciaramella, 2016a, 2016b because these are occupied the whole day by the same person(s) and booked out in advance when it is possible to do this (Brunia et al, 2016). However, in these 'under-provided' environments, there are still large amounts of unused spaces (Tagliaro & Ciaramella, 2016a) indicating an over-provision of space due to a potential misallocation of workspace to activity.…”

“…Unlike previous office layouts, the naming and definition of ABW offices is somewhat disjointed to date. The term 'ABW' is more common in the business world, whereas, 'flexible office', 'new ways of working' are more common in the academic literature but they refer to the same type of office layout (Appel-Meulenbroek, Kemperman, Kleijn, & Hendriks, 2015;Brunia, Been, & Voordt, 2016;De Bruyne & Beijer, 2015). This research adopts the term 'ABW' as it is more intuitive and self-explanatory, as explained below.…”

“…From a Dutch study of approximately 250 organisations who have implemented ABW, increase in organisational flexibility was the only CRE strategy which outperformed the organisation's expectations, whereas, other CRE strategies such as real estate cost savings, increase in employee well-being, work/private balance, employee satisfaction, employers' image and productivity did not meet organisations' expectations (Baalen, Heck, Muelen, & Oosterhout, 2011) in (Appel-Meulenbroek, Oldman, & Susante, 2016. The underperforming ABW CRE strategies are attributable to the levels of employees' ABW behavioural acceptance (Brunia et al, 2016). Employees' ABW acceptance impacts real estate cost savings because expected savings are highly dependent on post-relocation changes and may dissipate if organisations revert back to assigned seating (Becker, Quinn, Rappaport, & Sims, 1994).…”

“…Common issues with past office concepts (cellular and open plans) are still present in ABW offices such as the lack of privacy and uncomfortable indoor environment (Brunia et al, 2016;. There are new issues for CRE Managers and Facilities Managers (FM) to deal with due to the ABW nature which encourages a radical change to employees' behaviours in the way they work, their cognition to self-organise in a workplace with more autonomy whilst requiring them to accept a loss of personal territory and personalisation (Koetsveld & Kamperman, 2011;Voordt, 2004b) that may adversely affect how they feel, think and use the ABW.…”

“…These are typically used to assess organisational CRE strategies such as employee satisfaction with the general work environment and employee productivity (Riratanaphong & van der Voordt, 2015). Arguably, satisfaction captures both affective and cognitive response (Organ & Konovsky, 1989;Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) but these surveys tend to lack capturing employees' satisfaction in relation to specific innovative ABW features and the ABW policies, for example, the Work Environment Diagnosis Instrument (WODI) and Building Occupants Survey System Australia (BOSSA) questionnaires (For example, Been et al, 2015;Brunia et al, 2016;Candido et al, 2016). Additionally, these surveys do not assess behavioural responses and typically do not explain 'why' due to the limitation of the method.…”