The dark side of office designs: towards de‐humanization

Abstract

Recent research on flexible office designs have shown that open‐plan and/or flex offices may not have the expected effects in terms of employees’ productivity, well‐being, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and retention. In this article, we propose to consider that the feeling of de‐humanization may explain such dark side of office designs. Adopting a mixed methods approach, we administrated a quantitative survey to 534 employees working in a variety of office designs, and conducted 12 semi‐structured interviews among the respondents to the survey in order to investigate how they experienced their office designs, notably in terms of de‐humanization. Results showed that the three specific office designs under study (i.e. cell, open‐plan, and flex offices) are associated with different levels of de‐humanization and that this feeling of de‐humanization mediates their impact on employees’ job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, extra‐role performance, psychological strains, and turnover intentions. Interviews’ analysis reveals three main mechanisms in the development of the feeling of de‐humanization in such office designs: a triple feeling of dispossession (of space, voice and professional mastery), a feeling of abandon and an injunction to adopt a modern behaviour.

Abusive leadership versus objectifying job features: Factors that influence organizational dehumanization and workers’ self‐objectification

“…Moreover, these objectifying processes can arise as a consequence of many factors, from the status associated with a position (Baldissarri et al., 2014), the supervisors’ emotional distance displayed toward subordinates (Väyrynen & Laari‐Salmela, 2018), the leadership style that workers identify in their supervisors (Caesens et al., 2019), the type of tasks that they perform in their daily routines (Baldissarri, Andrighetto, et al., 2017; Bell & Khoury, 2011) or the working environments (e.g. Taskin et al., 2019). These factors did not only lead workers to perceive that they were treated as resources by their companies or to internalize the perception of themselves as objects, but also influenced workers well‐being and working satisfaction (e.g., Caesens et al.,2017, 2019).…”

The Link Between Authentic Leadership, Organizational Dehumanization and Stress at Work

“…This dehumanized perception (i.e., organizational dehumanization) has been found to be associated with several factors. Some are related to quality of work, such as the types of tasks that workers carry out (Baldissarri et al, 2014(Baldissarri et al, , 2019, the specific type of work they have to perform (e.g., dirty jobs; Valtorta et al, 2019aValtorta et al, , 2019b, or even the physical space in which workers perform their activities (Taskin et al, 2019). Other factors are related to the hierarchical relationship within the company, such as power dynamics (Gwinn et al, 2013;Lammers & Stapel, 2011) or perceived leadership styles (Caesens et al, 2018).…”

“…Moreover, we are aware that the protective role of an authentic leadership style could be potentially undermined when workers perceive that they lack other key factors within working environments. We take into account that workers' well-being and performance are triggered by several factors, such as status of their positions (Valtorta et al, 2019a), their working conditions, types of tasks they are assigned (Andrighetto et al, 2017;Taskin et al, 2019), or relationships with their co-workers (Reicher et al, 2005). Further research is needed to establish the extent to which authentic leadership can protect workers, even when other detrimental conditions are present, such as dehumanized environments or workers performing objectifying (i.e., repetitive, fragmented) tasks.…”

The Impact of New Ways of Working on Organizations and Employees: A Systematic Review of Literature

“…The current literature on NWW outcomes is scarce and in the vast majority focus only on one or two practices being part of NWW (like flexitime or activity-based offices). In this regard, the research done by Taskin et al (Taskin 2012;Taskin et al 2019), which highlights the de-humanization of activity-based offices, is emblematic. Looking at the results of the literature dealing with NWW is rather disappointing because the results are contradictory.…”