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This study aims to examine the key components to facilitate flexible work arrangement (FWA) and the issues and challenges arisen in preparing the workplace for FWA during Covid-19, and to recommend better approach of FWA implementation in workplace.

This study adopted extensive literature review and case studies approach using interviews and observations to determine the key components to facilitate FWA and the issues and challenges arisen in preparing the workplace for FWA during Covid-19, and to recommend better approach of FWA implementation in workplace. Three offices that owning FWA experience during Covid-19 and featuring flexible workspace concepts, elements and layouts in Klang Valley, Malaysia were chosen as case studies.

Findings have suggested that there are four components required to form flexible workspace for FWA adoption, such as open plan workspace design, task-oriented space, hot desking policy and IT infrastructure. Interestingly, the interview findings do not support the idea that the flexible furniture can facilitate FWA; instead, they believe that versatile, acoustical and aesthetical furniture may be installed when necessary. Among the issues and challenges faced were rearranging and designing open office plan layout, hot desk relocation and reconfiguration of spaces where people may congregate. Lastly, this research recommends that innovative planning software and tools, smart technology and apps, modern IT technology and infrastructure, and digital apps can be introduced to the workplace to help FM manage and monitor the facilities operations, workplace situations and occupancy rates.

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, FWA such as “Work From Home” and remote working have become the mainstream in the workplace, affecting how the workplace looks and feels as flexible working is fundamentally related to the flexible workspace. From Facilities Management (FM) perspective, FWA is the biggest consequence of Covid-19, but it also presents opportunities and certain challenges to incorporate a new office environment and employees’ needs in terms of FWA into the corporate culture.

The purpose of this paper is to map and describe findings from research conducted in workspaces designed to support activity-based working (ABW) over the past 10 years (2010–2020) with a view of informing post-COVID workplaces of the positive and negative attributes of ABW.

Scopus was used as the search engine for this review. Papers which reported findings related to ABW and performed field study in ABW workspaces with adult occupants were included. Out of the 442 initial papers, 40 papers were included following iterative title and abstract and full text review process and consideration of inclusion and exclusion criteria. These papers were divided into three groupings (organizational, human and physical environment) based on their major focus. Positive and negative effects of ABW environments on occupants are discussed within these three topics in consideration of the implications for the post-COVID workplace.

Although the included studies were inclined to be either more positive (i.e. interior design) or negative (i.e. indoor environmental quality, productivity, distraction and privacy) in relation to various attributes of ABW, no single effect of ABW environments on occupants was in full agreement between the studies. The shortcomings of ABW environments are more related to how this way of working is implemented and how occupants use it, rather than the concept itself. A partial uptake of ABW leads to occupants’ dissatisfaction, lower productivity and lower well-being, while a holistic approach increases the chance of success. It is hypothesised that many currently reported negative aspects of the ABW concept might diminish overtime as ABW evolves and as new challenges arise. A continuous post-occupancy evaluation after relocation to an ABW-supportive environment can inform the organization about the changing needs and preference of the occupants; hence, the organization can tailor the ABW solution to the arising needs. The inter-connection between the three key ABW pillars (organizational, human and physical environment) is crucial to the success of this concept specifically in the context of the post-COVID-19 workplace.

This paper highlights the key shortcomings and limitations of studies produced over the past decade and identifies keys gaps in the current body of literature. It provides a new insight on how findings related to open-plan offices designed to support ABW can be categorized on the three big heading of organizational, physical and human-related aspects, and further investigates the positive and negatives outcomes reported on ABW under these headings. It also discusses how the findings arising from this literature review can inform the post-COVID workplace.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether activity-based workspaces (ABWs) are able to solve the privacy-communication trade-off known from fixed-desk offices. In fixed-desk offices, employees work in private or open-plan offices (or in combi-offices) with fixed workstations, which support either privacy or communication, respectively. However, both dimensions are essential to effective employee performance, which creates the dilemma known as the privacy-communication trade-off. In activity-based workspaces, flexible workstations and the availability of different spaces may solve this dilemma, but clear empirical evidence on the matter is unavailable.

To address this knowledge gap, the authors surveyed knowledge workers (N = 363) at a medium-sized German company at three time points (T1–T3) over a one-year period during the company’s move from a fixed-desk combi-office (a combination of private and open-plan offices with fixed workplaces) to an ABW. Using a quantitative survey, the authors evaluated the employees’ perceived privacy and perceived communication in the old (T1) and the new work environments (T2 and T3).

The longitudinal study revealed a significant increase in employees’ perceived privacy and perceived communication in the ABW. These increases remained stable in the long term, which implies that ABWs have a lasting positive impact on employees.

As the privacy and communication dimensions were previously considered mutually exclusive in a single workplace, the results confirm that ABWs can balance privacy and communication, providing optimal conditions for enhanced employee performance.

This paper aims to illustrate the extensive benefits of qualitative data analysis as a rarely undertaken process in post-occupancy evaluation surveys. As a result, there is limited evidence of what occupants say about their buildings, especially for operational parameters, as opposed to how they rate them. While quantitative analyses provide useful information on how workers feel about workplace operational factors, qualitative analyses provide richer information on what aspects of the workplace workers identify as influential to their comfort, well-being and productivity.

The authors analysed 6,938 comments from office buildings worldwide on workers’ perception of workplace operational factors: design, storage, needs, space at desks and storage in their work environments. These factors were analysed based on the buildings’ design intent and use, and the associated comments were coded into positive, negative and balanced comments. The authors used a combination of coding, descriptive analysis, content analysis and word cloud to dissect the comments.

The findings showed that whereas workers rated these operational factors favourably, there were significantly more negative comments about each factor. Also, the Chi-square test showed a significant association (p < 0.01) between the satisfaction scale and the type of comments received for all the operational factors. This means that when a factor is rated high in the satisfaction score (5–7), there were fewer negative and more positive comments and vice versa. The word cloud analysis highlighted vital aspects of the office environment the workers mostly commented on, such as open plan design, natural lighting, space and windows, toilets, facilities, kitchens, meeting room booking systems, storage and furniture.

This study highlights the importance of dissecting building occupants’ comments as integral to building performance monitoring and measurement. These emphasise the richness and value of respondents’ comments and the importance of critically analysing them. A limitation is that only 6,938 comments were viable for analysis because most comments were either incomplete with no meaning or were not provided. This underlines the importance of encouraging respondents to comment and express their feelings in questionnaire surveys. Also, the building use studies questionnaire data set presents extensive opportunities for further analyses of interrelationships between demographics, building characteristics and environmental and operational factors.

The findings from this study can be applied to future projects and facility management to maintain and improve office buildings throughout their life cycle. Also, these findings are essential in predicting the requirements of future workplaces for robust workplace designs and management.

The authors identified specific comments on the performance of workplaces across the globe, showing similarities and differences between sustainable, conventional, commercial and institutional buildings. Specifically, the analysis showed that office workers’ comments do not always corroborate the ratings they give their buildings. There was a significantly higher percentage of negative comments than positive comments despite the high satisfaction scores of the operational factors.

Organisational strategy becomes reality by connecting organisation’s resources and capabilities in daily operations, and physical workspace is one of the environments in which this takes place. This study aims to explore to what extent factors required for successful strategy implementation are considered when designing, using and managing workspaces of knowledge-intensive organisations.

For the study, managers in 25 large and medium-sized knowledge-intensive organisations were interviewed. The semi-structured interviews focused on organisation’s strategy, strategy implementation practices and workspace design and management. To form a comprehensive framework of strategy implementation success factors for the study, the factors of 11 frameworks were analysed, grouped and renamed.

Current workspace design, usage and management mainly support human-related strategy implementation factors. However, both organisation- and human-related factors are needed for the strategy implementation to be successful. Therefore, the organisations studied may have unused potential in their workspaces to ensure strategy-aligned operations and behaviour.

Due to the potential imbalance between organisation- and human-related strategy implementation factors, a more holistic, organisational-level approach to workspace design, usage and management is recommended to ensure the success of strategy implementation.

Workspaces have extensively been studied from individual strategy implementation factors’ as well as employees’ perspectives. Prior to this work, there are only few studies exploring workspace in the holistic, strategy implementation context.

University faculty, researchers and graduate students are increasingly working out of hotdesks, nonterritorial workspaces available on a “first come first served” basis and cleared of all work and personal possessions at the end of every work session. The aim of this study of the hotdesking experiences of doctoral students in a US public university facility is to identify the themes and coping behaviors associated with hotdesking and examine their implications for campus workspace design and policymaking.

This study uses multiple methods – direct and participant observation of flex workspaces in the study site, semi-structured interviews of doctoral students hotdesking in the study site and archival research of public institutional data.

Study participants work early or late to secure suitable hotdesks, perform important tasks in locations other than the study site, incur co-working space and home office costs, etc. to cope with the themes of uncertainty, lack of control and lack of workspace continuity associated with hotdesking. Workspace reservation systems, storage lockers and workspaces for diverse tasks can improve the on-campus hotdesking experience. Off-campus support such as financial support for setting up and maintaining a home office, subscription to co-working spaces, etc. can facilitate productivity and foster a sense of connection in hotdesk users.

This study contributes evidence that hotdesking doctoral students operate in a hybrid work environment composed of on- and off-campus locations. This study provides original insight that hotdesk users need on- and off-campus workspace support to experience productivity, connection and well-being in a hybrid campus work environment.

Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of office buildings, accommodating large number of users, is significantly demanded, to ascertain the provision and upkeep of users' requirements. This paper presents the findings of a POE of an office building located in Saudi Arabia, as a case study.

A mixed approach of qualitative and quantitative research activities were conducted to achieve the objective of this study. Previous studies were analyzed to identify 28 performance indicators, grouped under seven technical and functional performance elements in office buildings. A walkthrough served to gain familiarity with the building, and identify the obvious performance defects. Interviews were conducted to solicit the users' perceptions about the performance elements, and initiate discussions based on the findings of the walkthrough. A user satisfaction survey was then deployed to quantify the user's feedback on the performance of the building.

Users of the case study office building were generally satisfied with all the technical performance elements, except visual comfort. They were also dissatisfied with two functional performance elements, namely office layout and building equipment.

Recommendations were developed to improve the performance of the case study building. The approach followed and the defined indicators can be of practical value to design professionals, administrators and facilities managers, responsible for the design and operation of office buildings.

Office buildings are valuable business capital for their corporate organizations. This study contributes to the facilities management literature, through providing a systematic approach for the quality and performance appraisal of the performance elements of office buildings.

The purpose of this study is to apply spatial theory to a review of the literature on activity-based working in higher education. Globally, the office concept of activity-based working (ABW) is increasingly implemented in higher education, and scholars contributed to developing empirical explanations of the effects of implementing ABW in higher education. However, the focus on theory building is limited, decreasing the predictability and the understanding of implementing ABW.

The authors developed a theoretical framework by categorizing the empirical findings of earlier accounts by integrating them with Lefebvre’s spatial theory. They conducted a systematic literature review of 21 studies published between 2008 and 2022 that reported on the phenomenon of ABW among higher-education employees.

It remains to be seen whether the implementation of the ABW in higher education is successful in terms of pre-defined goals. The studies investigating academic workplace concepts have led to inconsistent findings that lack an underlying framework. As the ABW concept fails to adequately support academics’ work processes, it is recommended that managers and architects consider their subjective perspectives about the use of space and take the time to understand the users’ fundamental values.

The authors integrated the selected studies with Lefebvre’s spatial theory, and this model includes three perspectives that can explain workers' experiences with ABW. This theoretical framework can assist researchers in gaining a deeper understanding of ABW and support practitioners in implementing it in higher education.

This paper aims to explore how the scientific literature and company reports have addressed inclusive workplace design and strategies to date.

This paper adopts a scoping review to answer the following question: To what extent is inclusion present in workplace design and related strategies? An analysis of 27 scientific papers and 25 corporate social responsibility reports of the highest-ranked companies in the Great Place to Work global ranking disentangles the main aspects related to workplace design and strategies for promoting inclusion.

This paper opens avenues for four macro-categories of diversity (psycho-physical aspects; cultural aspects; socio-economic conditions; and ability, experience and strengths) to support the development of inclusive workplace design and strategy. Besides, multiple spatial scales emerged as material and immaterial elements of the workplace encountering inclusion and diversity.

Nowadays, the workforce is becoming more diverse. Although diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) has become key to many organizations, it remains unclear how DE&I principles are applied in workspace design and strategies. This scoping review provides a novel perspective on the topic by integrating scientific knowledge and practice-based approaches which still address this matter independently.

The Purpose of this paper is to identify statistical relationships between visual environment and occupant productivity. Visual environment is one of the most important indoor environmental quality (IEQ) parameters, and it directly impacts occupant productivity in offices. The literature outlines the significance of the impact. Still, there is a lack of investigation, statistical analysis and inter-relationships between the independent variables (IEQ factors), especially in the hot and arid climate.

This study presents a research study investigating the effects and shows statistical relationships between IEQ on occupant comfort and productivity. The study was conducted in the Middle East, and data was collected for 12 months. It used the response surface analysis to perform analysis.

This study outlined seven unique relationships highlighting the recommended range, inter-dependencies. Results include that illumination has maximum effect on visual comfort and temperature, daylight having direct influence and relative humidity, wall type next to the seat and kind of workspace also impact visual comfort and productivity. These findings would help to improve occupant comfort and productivity in office buildings. It is recommended to include results and recommendations on design guidelines for office buildings.

This study presents the unique effects of non-visual IEQ parameters on visual comfort and productivity. This investigation also provides a unique method to develop the statistical relationship between various indoor environmental factors and productivity in different contexts and buildings.