Flexible office, flexible working A post-relocation study on how and why university employees use a combi-office for their activities at hand

Abstract

This study reports on a group of university employees, six months after their relocation from cell-offices into a combi-office. Data from interviews, observations and planning documentation was collected to gain an in-depth understanding of how employees use their office landscape and why. Activity theory was taken as framework for the analysis. The findings show that the new office landscape was perceived to be more flexible and capable of supporting employees' activities. The overall occupancy was low and backup spaces, such as quiet rooms, were barely used. Matches and mismatches between the employees, their activities and the office were identified that explain the occupancy rates and why spaces such as quiet rooms were unpopular spaces. This paper contributes with rich detail on the use of a flexible office landscape in a university context and shows the usefulness of activity theory in the study of employee-office interactions.

Activity-based work and its implications for the academic work environment

“…In contrast to the importance of control, empowerment and involvement of employees in the implementation process of new offices emphasized by earlier research (Cobaleda-Cordero et al , 2020; Rolfö, 2018; Vischer, 2007), both the staff and the managers stated that they did not have much influence over the decisions concerning the design of the office environment; they just had to accept the change from (originally planned) personal offices to ABW. In addition, the managers were lacking skills to implement the ABW concept as well as the authority to handle the problems related to it.…”

“…Universities have started implementing flexible (Cobaleda-Cordero et al , 2020) and open-plan offices (Baldry and Barnes, 2012), such as ABW (Pinder et al , 2009; Gorgievski et al , 2010; Baldry and Barnes, 2012), even though there are indications that this kind of office environment can have negative consequences for the work environment (Berthelsen et al , 2018). The aim of the current interview study was therefore to investigate how university staff and their immediate managers perceived the academic work environment after a transition to ABW.…”

“…The offices in universities have traditionally been personal or so-called cell offices (i.e. personal offices or rooms shared by two to three people), but a current trend is towards different types of flexible and open academic offices (Cobaleda-Cordero et al , 2020; Baldry and Barnes, 2012), such as activity-based workplaces (ABW) (Berthelsen et al , 2018). The space in ABW is divided into zones based on the most common activities of the organization (Rolfö, 2018).…”

Genuine co-design: an activity theory analysis involving emergency nurses in an interdisciplinary new product development project of a novel medical device

“…AT has been used as an analytical tool in various domains, such as HCI research (Bødker, 1996;Bødker and Klokmose, 2011;Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006;Kuutti, 2009); education (Roth, 2004); organisational learning (Engeström, 1987); workplace design (Cobaleda-Cordero et al, 2020) as well as user-centred product development (Engelbrektsson, 2004;Eriksson, 2014;Hjort af Ornäs, 2010;Karlsson, 1996;Rexfelt, 2008) and sustainability design research (Goldsmith, 2018;Selvefors, 2017) to understand the interrelationships between human, culture (i.e. the life they live) and the mediating role artefacts have in human activity.…”

Is a new office a blessing in disguise? The strategic importance of relocation

“…Sometimes the implementation of a new workplace concept is even a reason for relocation (Hassanain et al, 2020;Nenonen and Danivska, 2020). Changes in office design and workplace concepts have significant effects on employee outcomes such as well-being (Cordero et al, 2020) or productivity and motivation (Petrulaitiene and Jylhä, 2015).…”