ABW programs rarely focus on the workplace itself

The transition from a conventional work environment to activity-based working is both a spatial and an organizational change. A traditional office layout is a spatial reflection of a hierarchical structure: fixed workstations, fixed departments, and private offices as visible markers of status. The floor plan mirrors the organizational chart.

Activity-Based Working (ABW) breaks down that translation. Spaces are shared, departmental boundaries blur, and the logic of the work—not the logic of hierarchy—determines where someone sits. This implicitly presupposes an organization that functions as a network: less vertical, more horizontal, driven more by collaboration and context than by position.

This is not a new insight. The shift from location- and time-bound structures to distributed organizational forms has been a subject of research since the 1990s (Van der Wielen et al., 1993; Jackson & Van der Wielen, 1998). Yet the same pattern emerges in every new initiative—not because the field has stagnated, but because every organization is making this transition for the first time.

The real challenge of virtually every ABW initiative lies elsewhere. The project is introduced as a spatial concept—more efficient use of square meters, better support for various activities—but it touches on something more fundamental: the way in which meaning is created within an organization.

What is perceived as resistance is usually something else: a shift that the employee must still make themselves. From ownership to use. From individual to collective. From a place that reflected status to a place where status is created through collaboration. Employees usually do not take that step on their own. That is where the change process has a clear role to play.

The Workplace as a Source of Meaning

A workplace is not a neutral tool. Research in environmental and organizational psychology has shown the same thing for decades: people derive their identity, status, social connectedness, and sense of control from their workplace. A workplace is therefore simultaneously a physical space, a social signal, and a position within the system.

In a conventional environment, this is largely invisible because the meaning is embedded in the space itself. The executive office, the name tags, the layout of the hallways—they do the job without needing to be discussed. Only when that structure is broken down does it become clear how many functions a workplace fulfilled beyond the one inherent in the furniture.

To make this visible—and open to discussion—an analytical framework is needed that looks beneath the surface of behavior. Three levels consistently emerge in this context: the individual, the group, and the organization.

Three Levels Underlying Every Type of Workplace Behavior

The personal level concerns the individual and their immediate work environment. The underlying question is: What do I need to work comfortably and effectively? Factors such as certainty, autonomy, safety, and predictability come into play here. This level aligns with what is known in environmental psychology as “environmental control”—the degree to which a person can influence their immediate physical environment—and with the importance of territoriality, or having a recognizable, personal space (Vischer, 2008). Both have been shown to be consistently linked to concentration, well-being, and performance.

The group level concerns relationships with others. The question is: how do I relate to my colleagues? Recognition, a sense of belonging, and mutual trust play a role here. In this regard, a workplace rarely functions solely in a utilitarian sense; it serves as a social signal. Where a team is located, how visible it is, and who one interacts with on a daily basis all influence group identity and collaboration. This level aligns with social identity theory and with research on the role of physical proximity in team cohesion.

The organizational level concerns one’s position within the system. The question is: What does this position say about my role, influence, and place in the structure? The themes are status, authority, influence, hierarchy, and fairness. The allocation of spaces—who gets their own office, who shares, and based on what criteria—is, in virtually every organization, also a distribution of symbolic capital. This is the level that is most vehemently denied in conversations yet plays the greatest role in behavior. Perceptions of fairness prove to be decisive here: it is not the outcome itself, but the perceived procedural fairness that determines whether people accept a change.

Level	Central question	Underlying themes
Person	What do I need to work comfortably and effectively?	Certainty, autonomy, safety, predictability
Group	How do I relate to my colleagues?	Recognition, belonging, trust
Organization	What does this place say about my role and place within the structure	Status, authority, influence, position, fairness

Table 1: Workplace Behavior at Three Levels

The levels can be distinguished, but not separated. In any workplace behavior, all three often come into play simultaneously, with varying emphases.

What an ABW transition actually changes

Against the backdrop of these three levels, it becomes clear what an ABW transition sets in motion simultaneously.

At the individual level, territoriality disappears, and with it an important source of predictability and control. What feels like the loss of a desk is, in psychological terms, a loss of environmental control: the certainty that someone knows where they’ll be sitting tomorrow, with what supplies, and next to whom. That loss is real, regardless of how much choice the new environment offers.

At the group level, visible team cohesion shifts. In a conventional environment, a team is a recognizable cluster—a collection of desks in a corner, a department sign, a shared coffee machine. In an ABW environment, the team is a scattered group whose cohesion must be reestablished every day. For some, this is liberating; for others, it means the loss of a self-evident social infrastructure.

At the organizational level, the visible distinction between positions disappears. Those who no longer have their own office lose not only a physical space but also a symbol of their role and influence. This is typically the least discussed yet most decisive shift. Meaning that was previously conveyed through physical space must now be established in a different way—through behavior, collaboration, and visibility within the network. No longer conferred by position, but earned through interaction.

This is precisely why ABW and network organization are mutually dependent. The spatial transition can only succeed if the organizational logic shifts accordingly: from position to contribution, from vertical scarcity to horizontal collaboration, from assigned status to visible role.

Where this does not happen, an ABW environment emerges that has been spatially renovated but remains organizationally unchanged—with the predictable result that hierarchical patterns reestablish themselves, no longer in the floor plan but in informal claims and unwritten rules (Perin, 1991).

Why the discussion Doesn’t Begin Until After the Design Phase

In most ABW projects, decision-making proceeds in two separate phases. During the design phase, the floor plan and usage agreements are established: the concept is set. This happens top-down—and that is a deliberate choice. A guiding principle such as “no one has a fixed workstation” cannot be negotiated without negating itself. The quote attributed to Henry Ford sums up the logic: if he had asked his customers what they wanted, they would have said, “a faster horse.”

It is only in the phase that follows—the change process—that employees are given a voice. Not to change the concept, but to learn how to work with it. And that is where the three levels manifest themselves. Not as design input, but as a reaction to something that has already been built. People experience what they are losing: their desk, their view of colleagues, their visible position within the organization.

In that discussion, the change process needs its own language. Without an analytical framework, every reaction is judged on its own terms: a protest about a desk is about a desk; a complaint about the executive office is about that office. With the three-level framework, it becomes clear that the desk is actually about predictability (person), the executive office about hierarchy (organization), and the vanished team zone about belonging (group). Often, all three are at play simultaneously, in varying proportions—and organizations tend to select a single level, usually the most concrete one. This is where ABW initiatives run into trouble: not because the design is flawed, but because the wrong conversation is being had.

In conclusion

An ABW transition is not a housing project with a behavioral component. It is an organizational change with a spatial component. What is at stake is not the workplace itself, but what the workplace represented: identity, connection, and status.

The rest is just interior design.

References

• Jackson, P.J. & Van der Wielen, J.M.M. (Eds.) (1998). International perspectives on telework: from telecommuting to the virtual organisation. London: Routledge.

• Perin, C. (1991). The moral fabric of the office: Panopticon discourse and schedule flexibilities. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 8, 241–268.

• Van der Wielen, J.M.M., Taillieu, T.C.B., Poolman, J.A. & Van Zuilichem, J. (1993). Telework: dispersed organisational activity and new forms of spatial-temporal coordination and control. The European Work & Organisational Psychologist, 3(2), 145–162.

• Vischer, J.C. (2008). Towards an environmental psychology of workspace: How people are affected by environments for work. Architectural Science Review, 51(2), 97–108.