Why would you choose an activity based workplace?

Why try Activity-Based Working?

So, as you’ve probably already figured out, we’re on our way to start living as we learn and in the process of building an activity-based workplace. Before this journey was even thought of we have been interested in this kind of solution for a long time. As you know by now, workplace productivity is our passion and ABW is definitely the next big thing in this area. And in the spirit of new changes we thought we’d write about why companies choose to go through this change and what might happen during the way. 

Why companies switch to ABW

While getting deeper into activity based workplace design we found that there are two different categories of goals explaining why companies choose to go through with this. On one hand we have the organizational and management’s point of view. Those goals include things like: 

• Higher cost efficiency by space optimization
• Increased revenue due to higher work productivity
• Lower amount of sick days because of increased work life satisfaction

Management are not the only ones supposedly winning in an activity-based work environment. All of the coworkers do. Maybe in sightly different ways though. When you're not a CEO you tend to care less about space optimization. The goals for all of the coworkers look more like this:  

• More independence since you can choose for yourself where you get your work done in the best way
• Better teamwork with the help of more open and collaborative spaces
• Increased productivity by access to both quite rooms as well as open spaces
• Higher satisfaction and stimulation
• Last but not least; higher flexibility

What challenges will we face?

Sounds perfect right? Well yes. According to almost all sources a successful implementation of ABW can lead to so many good things. With that said, the journey to get there won’t be just smooth sailing. Before we made the decision we made sure to investigate what challenges other companies faced during their change and here is what we found; 

• Reluctancy from coworkers to make this kind of change in the workplace
• A feeling of desk and space shortage
• Popular places being booked up quickly 
• Insufficient workplace technology
• Tension in the workplace because of insecurity surrounding placing

Time will tell if we’ll actually face these exact challenges, but they seem to be the most common obstacles to overcome (psst. read our tips on how to facilitate change here!). We’re not saying it’s going to be easy but since the statistics show that 98% of highly satisfied employees work somewhere they can move around the workplace during the day, we figured we just have to do it. 

You will be able to follow our journey live as it happens through videos and articles. We’ll share our experiences and we’ll tell you if these were the challenges we met and if so, how we moved passed them. Stay tuned!