Longitudinal Effects of Activity-Based Flexible Office Design on Teamwork

Abstract

This three-wave longitudinal interview study (time lag: 12 and 18 months) investigates the impact of working in an activity-based flexible office (A-FO) on processes within and across teams (i.e., communication, trust, cohesion, and collaboration) and team management. Based on a new theoretical framework on benefits and risks of A-FOs (A-FO-M; Wohlers and Hertel, 2017), we conducted interviews with 25 employees of an in-house training institute who recently switched from single cell or shared offices to an A-FO. The A-FO consisted of a main open-layout environment without assigned workstations and provided additional working zones appropriate for specific work activities. According to the A-FO-M, A-FO features are expected to alter visibility and proximity of employees compared to office environments with assigned workstations. Altered visibility and proximity, in turn, should be related to team processes, such as communication. The interview material was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. This textual analysis procedure revealed that the interviewees reported that inter-team collaboration improved while working in the A-FO. Reasons that were mentioned for this positive effect were more contact, communication, collaboration possibilities (joint project work), and trusting relationships. However, interviewees also reported negative effects, such as that teamwork suffered due to less communication and cooperation. Along with that, especially ensuring team cohesion and communication among team partners were the most often mentioned challenges for management since team members were spatially dispersed within the office building. Theoretical and practical implications, such as assigning additional team areas to support teamwork, as well as recommendations for future research are discussed.

Sense of Coherence, Health, Well-Being, and Work Satisfaction before and after Implementing Activity-Based Workplaces

“…Explanations for this could be found in the interviews where employees described positive side-effects of the relocation, such as having stimulated meetings and interacting with colleagues from different departments. The effects on team collaborations in ABWs have also been shown in previous studies, e.g., [33].…”

Activity-based flexible offices: effects on work-related outcomes in a longitudinal study

“…Another limitation is that the data was collected from only one organisation, which limits the generalisation of the results to other organisations and work contexts. A-FO's configuration and their implementation can differ from one organisation to another (Wohlers and Hertel 2018), and this should be accounted for in future studies. Furthermore, some previous studies called for exploring the mechanisms behind the effects of the work environment in general.…”

New Working Practices: A Scientometric Review

“…The second largest cluster (numbered as #1) has 31 members and was labelled as the longitudinal effect by LLR. Moreover, the most active citer to cluster #1 is Wohlers and Hertel (2018), which analysed the longitudinal effects of activity-based flexible office design on teamwork. It was found that cluster label by LLR is influenced by the title of the most citer paper to the cluster.…”

“…The second-ranked article, with citation counts of 13, is de Menezes and Kelliher (2011) also in Cluster #0. Two references (Appel-Meulenbroek et al, 2011;Yin, 2009) were ranked third because they have the same citation counts of 9, and they are from the same Cluster #1. The first reference (Kelliher & Anderson, 2010) entitled "Doing more with less?…”

“…One of the two references that ranked third (Appel-Meulenbroek et al, 2011) underlined some known benefits and disadvantages of the activity-based office concept. Whereas the second one (Yin, 2009) of the same ranking provided an essential guide to qualitative methods in organisational research with an extensive emphasis on the use of a case study approach. In all, the top ten landmark articles revealed that references that have a high impact in the research community began to surge after 2008 with the 4 articles published in 2009 highlighting the earlier research hotspots about NWPs.…”