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The workplace concept represents the convergence of three disciplines: Facilities management, information technology and human resources. Concepts such as knowledge work and human capital drive the shift in professional focus from ‘place’ to ‘workplace’. The responsibilities of facility managers extend beyond operating issues to the more fundamental goals of providing highperforming and sustainable workplaces. Accordingly, the performance measurement paradigm must also be shifted from measuring facilities to measuring workplaces, using models and measures that recognise the importance and interdependence of facilities, information technology and human resources. This paper discusses initial efforts to measure innovative workplaces, provides an example of an organisation committed to providing its customers with innovative workplaces, and concludes that the measurement of innovative workplaces itself requires innovative and ‘out of the box’ techniques. New measurement paradigms are critical, however, not for ‘proving’ the case for the implementation of these innovative workspace solutions, but for evaluating and comparing evolving workplace approaches already under way.

Innovative workplace solutions have been known as “workplace of the future”or “alternative fficing.” Today these concepts are being adopted by a cadre of forward‐thinking companies of all sizes, across industries. These companies have begun to tailor their workplace to meet their particular needs. They are seeking ways to use their investments in space and technology to enable rather than inhibit progress toward their objectives. While still far from being universally embraced, these changes in workplace conceptualization and implementation are worth a closer look. This paper identifies key trends, discusses the forces driving them, debunks some myths that have arisen, outlines the potential benefits of these approaches, and discusses the need for an integrated approach to achieve successful implementation. Several examples are provided to demonstrate the appeal of workplace strategy across industries and suggest lessons that can be applied by the reader to their own unique situations. Primary workplace research conducted by the author as well as her corporate and consulting experience informs the points made throughout this article.

Today, organisations around the globe are operating in an unprecedented, highly competitive seller’s market. The global workforce is now more mobile than ever before, meaning that companies are no longer simply competing for talent nationally, but rather on an international level. The Canadian Federal Government, like most Government organisations, simply cannot compete with private industry in the area of salaries, stock options or perks. In addition, the impending wave of retirements that threatens to devastate the Federal employment ranks has caused us to look to the work environment as a means of attracting and retaining the top talent we need. This paper examines the characteristics of the different generations that currently make up our workforce and discusses what they, as well as new recruits, expect from their employers and from their work environments. It also delves into the role the workplace plays in recruitment and retention and the way in which it can be used to improve an organisation’s corporate identity. It then looks at what types of perks are actually valued most by employees, and explores how the physical environment can be aligned to help shape a company’s organisational culture and facilitate the communication, teamwork and creativity that are necessary to sustain a culture of continual innovation.

The aim of this paper is to present findings from the research project “Oscar – Value for Owners and Users of Buildings” and investigate two research questions: What in early-phase planning of real estate projects and facilities management creates value for owners and users of buildings? Do respondents in private enterprises, public administrations and hybrid organizations have different priorities during early-phase planning of buildings and facilities management concerning which factors creates value for owners and users of buildings?

This study is based on a national survey (N = 837) among Norwegian owners and users of buildings where the respondents report their emphasis on economic, social, environmental and physical aspects during early-phase planning of buildings. The data have been analysed through descriptive statistics, ranking of means and one-way ANOVA supplemented with bootstrapping.

Many Norwegian owners and users of buildings emphasize short-term financials and seem to overlook recent research concerning what creates long-term value such as life-cycle planning and the buildings’ elasticity, flexibility, generality. Respondents employed by private enterprises seem to have shorter time horizon than respondents employed by hybrid organizations and public administrations.

Further empirical research in Norway and preferably also in other countries, based on surveys with large random samples of respondents is needed to establish whether it is possible to generalize this study’s findings.

Increased emphasis during early-phase planning of buildings on aspects creating long-term value can significantly increase the buildings’ value creation for owners and users. This article indicates some attention areas and possible strategies during early-phase planning to improve the long-term value creation for owners and users.

This is an empirical study (national survey) with particular emphasis on how early-phase planning of buildings can contribute to value creation for users and owners during the buildings’ use phase.

Over the last ten years interest in and implementation of different forms of alternative officing (AO) have increased dramatically. AO has, in fact, become simply another tool in the real estate and FM space planning and design toolkit. This paper briefly describes different types of AO, and then suggests that AO, which has primarily responded to corporate drives to reduce costs, should broaden its focus to explore alternative ways of constructing and procuring space in response to a different organisational change: namely, to be able to occupy space on‐demand. The article describes the concept of a lean portfolio that helps organisations manage uncertainty better through infrastructure on‐demand; and proposes a research agenda for systematically examining different alternative workplace strategies (AWS).

This paper reports an investigation of the performance of a sample of office buildings in Hong Kong which were marketed as being intelligent. A summary review of literature charting the development of intelligent buildings and perspectives of what intelligence means when applied to office buildings provides a basis for the study. Adopting a fitness‐for‐purpose perspective, as the approach adopted most widely for evaluations, data on the buildings’ designs (incorporation of intelligence features), users’ requirements and occupants’ views of performance of their workplaces were collected via questionnaire surveys. Analysis followed the building ranking method adopted by Harrison. Results indicate that only a minority of the office buildings marketed as “intelligent” achieve the level of performance to match users’ and occupants’ requirements and so constitute business value intelligent buildings; the majority are underachieving.

The purpose of this paper is to examine what organisational and management practices used in connection with open space flexible offices create business value. It seeks to identify what consequences this may have for successful real estate practices.

This paper utilises an inductive case study approach. The international telecom company Telenor has implemented open space flexible offices from top to bottom amongst their 35,000 employees. The case description and analysis is based on secondary data, user evaluations and 20 interviews with middle- and top-level managers across levels and functional departments.

The case of Telenor reveals that leadership and organizing issues are important, together with work modes and communication technology, for a productive use of work place design. The paper highlights specifically how the open, transparent, flexible office solution creates business value when used with centralised and standardised organisational management systems and a participative, informal leadership culture.

The study is based on one case, so the findings need to be tested across a representative sample of companies.

Managers need to take both organisational and management issues into consideration when implementing new office space design. This challenges also the existing real estate strategies to include the organisational and management issues in their planning.

The originality and value of the paper lies in the analysis and findings of the Telenor case introducing organizational and management perspectives to real estate issues.

The purpose of this paper is to explore hybrid work spaces, combining open-plan, team-based offices with virtual work and leadership, in relation to the main leadership and team challenges virtual project environments encounter.

In a review of virtual team literature, virtuality is defined and its main challenges to project leadership are identified. Based on the literature, several semi-structured interviews with project team managers within telecom and IT-consultancy were conducted. Using an exploratory approach, the authors introduce some new leadership concepts and functional benefits of open-plan offices important for virtual project environments.

The findings suggest that project managers encounter several new kinds of challenges while leading virtual projects. Co-location of the project team during certain stages in open-plan, team-based offices may meet some of these challenges. The authors claim that spatial arrangements and their embodied subjective experiences make an impact on the effectiveness of virtual project teams.

This paper develops new conceptual thinking of how office facilities may contribute to productive virtual project teams. Further empirical studies in other settings are needed to generate generalizable findings.

The paper discusses and provides arguments for real estate and facility managers, as well as project and team leaders, for the importance of open-plan offices for virtual project teams.

The paper combines and benefits from different discussions on workspaces, virtual team and leadership. Furthermore, the paper introduces the notion of spatial leadership beyond the mainstream leader-centric approach to point out the importance of physical workspace of virtual teams and how the workspaces can perform leadership functions.

Workplace innovation is a much‐described subject. Workplace innovation is usually introduced to increase flexibility. Workplace knowledge is, most of the time, institutionalised in formal tools. These tools compete with creativity of employers, employees and professionals. This paper describes the quest for frameworks helping professional advisers to grow in knowledge and understanding of workplace innovations. The experience of the Dutch Government Buildings Agency is used to illustrate the search. A research agenda is given.

The growth of facilities management has brought with it a greater emphasis on the way in which we use office space. The drive for greater economic efficiency has resulted in more intense use of offices and the introduction of new office practices. This paper compares the effect of new office practices on office densities in both Australia and the UK. Comparing the office use across a range of organisation functions and use categories, it provides a framework for future performance measures within the selected markets and wider comparison of office space globally and, as such, establishes a foundation for the development of strategic asset plans based on clear measured objectives.