The Challenge

While there are many benefits to open-plan offices and agile layouts there are also many challenges:

• Interruptions – Academic studies have found that the average office worker is interrupted roughly every 3 minutes. Most information workers find it almost impossible to get “into the flow” and concentrate on a single work task during the work day leading to increased worker stress levels, decreased productivity and morale, and poorer work / life balance.
• Finding a Space – With the introduction of hot desking and activity-based working, an organization must make it easy for staff to find the workspace they need to complete their tasks efficiently. Without the correct tools and processes in place, staff lose confidence in the agile environment and resort to ‘desk hogging’ where they hold onto a resource defeating the purpose of activity-based working.
• Finding a Colleague – with staff constantly moving around the office as their work needs change, the ability to locate a colleague because extremely difficult. Again, without the correct tools to allow employees to find each other old habits of a static work environment re-emerge.
• Understanding your workforce – moving to an agile work environment can be a monumental change to an organization. If you do not have the tools in place to understand how your staff are using the different workspaces within your office you will not have the insight you need to make the decisions to refine your workspaces which can really affect employee well-being impair your workforce.

• Activity Based Working
• Hotdesking
• Office Hoteling