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This paper aims to examine how the existing organisational culture of organisations changed with the introduction of activity-based working (ABW) office layouts from the employees’ perspectives.

A questionnaire was used to measure the influence of introducing ABW. The study focused on three different industry sectors in Australia – financial, IT and government – and one organisation from each sector who had introduced ABW during the period of 2012–2019 was selected. The Competing Value Framework was used to measure the dimensions of organisational culture. A paired sample test was used to measure the changes in employees’ perceptions after the layout changes.

Findings identify that the nature of workplace designs has a considerable impact on an organisation’s corporate culture which can be used to leverage and change its culture. However, some noticeable discrepancy between the perceptions of public and private sector employees was identified, where public sector employees felt that standardised procedures still governed their actions even in ABW layouts.

This research highlights that workplace designs directly influence culture by supporting the engagement, motivation and behaviours of the employees. It emphasises the importance of in-depth examination of the behavioural and attitudinal characteristics of employees to obtain a better understanding of how they interact in ABW layouts. Such an analysis provides the context for a more inclusive understanding of the operation of modern office layouts.

Office layout arrangements have a significant influence on many important aspects of organisations, and design firms need to liaise with the client to determine the most appropriate design process. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors design firms consider when designing new office layouts and the nature of future offices from the design and workplace strategist firms’ perspectives.

A qualitative study comprising interviews with leading international and nation design firms and workplace strategy consultant firms in Australia. Qualitative data was analysed using a thematic approach, which adopted within case, and across case, analyses.

Research identified major factors considered when identifying appropriate workplace strategies. These included the existing and preferred culture of the organisation, the level of flexibility required, functionality and technology requirements, acoustic strategies, sense of community and generation gap between employees. Participants believed future offices would be technology driven, community oriented, sustainability, health and well-being focussed, smaller in size with satellite offices, such as co-working and office spaces.

This research has implications for industry and academics, as it provides an in-depth understanding of workplace specialists’ and design firms’ perceptions of clients’ contemporary and future requirements from office spaces. It also illustrates what they look at when designing office spaces for large corporates.

Research demonstrates how the office environment should match with the physical and psychological needs of the organisation and its employees. Findings have practical applications to professionals in human resource management and the design, management, development and valuation of office buildings.

This paper provides in-depth insights into how design firms and workplace strategists meet organisations’ changing demand for physical spaces, their main considerations in developing new workplace strategies, process followed and nature of future workplace in Australian context.

This paper aims to provide organizations with a new tool to make decisions related to a facility (building) selection process. Traditionally, value engineering (VE) applies the Value = Function/Cost formula to evaluate the worth of a product. In this paper, the VE-based facility-selection approach is proposed, where the cost of a facility is expressed in net present value (NPV) as it contains the net expense of purchasing or leasing a building as well as the time value of money. Also, a method of quantifying functions and involved risks of different facility choices is proposed.

The framework of the VE-based facility-selection process is broken down into three steps: preparation, calculation/analysis and assessment. In the latter part of this paper, the authors share a sample analysis by illustrating the analysis and decision-making process when three hypothetical facility-selection options are available.

The sample analysis indicates that companies can get the lowest cost and risk while improving their functions to achieve the highest value by using the modified VE formula to drive an optimal option for company’s business expansion and facility-selection process.

This paper provides organizations with a strategic system and process to select proper facilities or buildings for business expansion. The VE approach suggested in this study can allow facility/real estate portfolio decision-makers to analyze financial and functional aspects of the facility at the same time and obtain the value coefficient when they choose a new facility from different options. Finally, they can select the best option, which has the highest value coefficient, given financial and functional considerations.