Journal
APPLIED ERGONOMICS
Volume 83, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2019.102971
Keywords
Activity-based working (ABW); Workspace design; Artefact ecology
Categories
Funding
- Chalmers University of Technology
- AFA Insurance
- Umea University
- Vasterbotten County Council
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Activity-based Flexible Offices (AFOs) are innovations in workspace design that are being increasingly implemented in organisations. While most studies investigate satisfaction and perceived work support in AFOs, employees' workspace preferences are not addressed in the literature. The aims of this study were to (i) identify workspace preferences and non-preferences in AFOs, and (ii) investigate whether employees' workstation choices support their activities and align with their preferences. Two Swedish municipalities participated in the study. Data collection involved 27 semi-structured interviews and annotations on architectural drawings. The results showed that the interviewees preferred workstations that were both desirable and functional, and avoided workstations that were undesirable. This was due to functional, social, emotional and symbolic aspects of the workspaces as well as their physical structure and stimuli. The approach used in this paper can be adopted for improving the design of AFOs, thereby mitigating the stress of finding a suitable workstation.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available