What is activity-based working?

Activity-Based Working (ABW) has become the go-to working methodology in a new era of flexibility, where employees can still be with their team but also choose the environments that best suit their work on any particular day. Whereas Hybrid working allows workers to choose their locations based on their needs and tasks, (like, home, office, co-working space, café) ABW is it’s equivalent but within the office, offering workers a variety of spaces to support collaboration, focus, and innovation, all while reducing real estate costs.

However, this office revolution isn’t without its challenges. For every organisation that has thrived under ABW, others have stumbled. So, what is activity-based working, and what separates success from failure in the journey toward a more flexible and efficient workspace model? Let’s find out.

Activity-based working is a flexible approach to work, where employees have the freedom to choose from various workspaces designed for different types of tasks rather than being assigned a fixed desk and location. These workspaces could include collaborative areas for working in groups, quiet areas for getting your head down and focusing, informal lounges for creative thinking and, of course, the meeting room for group discussions and private one-to-ones.

What’s key, is that the design and layout of the space are tailored to support different activities associated with them, such as collaborating, concentrating, thinking, team working and discussing. The employee then has a choice in where they go to do their best work, varying their location throughout the day as the nature of the task changes.

With the switch to a hybrid working model, where employees have a choice over whether they work from the office or remotely, such as their home, employers have found themselves with an incredible opportunity to right-size and reconfigure the office space, making it a truly attractive and useful resource for enabling productive work.

With the ABW model each team has a fixed  ‘Anchor point’. This can be a totem, sign or even a person. It marks a central point of occupation for the area the team calls it’s home. The beauty of this concept is that it allows teams to intermingle so that people from adjacent teams can get to know each other and there are no territorial barriers the reinforce separation. This is great where you have teams that need to form close relations and work together and can form part of a social engineering strategy.

Beware though, some consultancies still advocate for ‘Neighbourhoods’ that are specific spaces that assigned to teams and communities. We’ve found that this still reinforces barriers between teams and all our research and experience tells us that this is the last thing we want as we move into a new mode of working.

Organisations perform best when their workforce is highly engaged. High engagement comes from a great culture, which is brought about by leaders who believe in empowering their people with responsibility and a clear focus on achieving strategic goals. Activity-based working helps by supplying the environment for an engaged and productive workforce to thrive.

Empowerment comes from the flexibility people have in how and where work gets done. This results in many benefits:

• Enhanced collaboration: Thoughtfully designed spaces encourage collaboration, resulting in better communication and teamwork.
• Silo busting: Because teams no longer ‘own’ their space and have a central ‘anchor’ point, people often find themselves working alongside colleagues from adjacent teams opening up conversations and strengthening cross department relationships.
• Increased productivity: Providing work environments optimised for specific tasks helps people improve their focus and work more efficiently.
• Cost Efficiency: ABW reduces everyone’s need for fixed workstations, thereby reducing office space and real estate costs, especially when combined with hybrid working.
• Better Use of Space: Office space can be designed to be more flexible and efficient, adapting to changing workforce needs, particularly for those who split their time between the office and their home.
• Support for Different Work Styles: One of the biggest things we have in common is that we’re all different. ABW accommodates diverse working preferences, from quiet individual work to high-energy collaborative tasks. It’s a place where both extroverts and introverts can thrive!
• Encourages Innovation: Informal spaces designed for creativity and brainstorming can help new ideas flow and innovation flourish.
• Improved Employee Satisfaction: Greater autonomy and control over the work environment can lead to higher job satisfaction and motivation.
• Lower carbon: Less space per head means less Cabon generated. Many people don’t realise that buildings are a large contributor to Carbon.

It takes planning and forethought to get it right. From our own research at AWA, ‘Managing the Agile Workforce’, we know that agile teams working this way need to have rock-solid communication practices in place so that:

• People trust that the communications will occur in a timely manner
• They trust that the content will be reliable and comprehensive (i.e. that everything they have raised will be responded to)
• They know each other well enough to know where they can get the things they need (i.e. who knows what) – which avoids time wasting for both parties
• They respect each other’s time
• They know enough about each other’s workload and contributions to make a judgement about whether that input will be satisfactory

The theory all sounds good, right? But as anyone who has ever tried to introduce change into a workplace will know, change is met with different levels of enthusiasm! Expect some people to mourn the loss of their fixed desk. Some people will feel uneasy about having such freedom of choice in their workplace and ‘loosing’ their personally ‘owned’ desk. Here’s a list of do’s and don’ts to support people on their journey to high performance ABW;

Do….

• Undertake a detailed study to establish the right mix of spaces and technologies before letting your designers start designing.
• From this study develop a clear ‘Case for change’ that will define the what, why, how, when and who of the change.
• Align your change rationale to strong business drivers like breaking down silos, productivity, sustainability and so on.
• Explain the benefits to your working community: improved performance, better relationships, choice, sustainability
• Make sure you have a strong sponsor and buy-in from your business leadership
• Develop a comprehensive Change Management programme that creates excitement and gets everyone involved
• Create a community of carefully selected leaders and Champions and train them to engage effectively with colleagues to share plans and solutions and gain feedback.
• Get Champions involved in developing ‘Etiquettes’ the rules of the workplace road
• Give people the permission to nudge their colleagues if they see poor etiquettes or behaviours
• Keep people informed
• Make sure that the conditions are set up for success on day one
• Monitor and support the change for at least 1 year

Don’t….

• Assume your designers can work out the mix of spaces from few interviews and a workshop. They can’t.
• Assume that you can do a couple of Town Halls and send a few emails and the change will happen effectively
• Everyone will ‘get it’ because they are bright people
• Invite anyone to be a Change Champion. We need people who are ‘influencers’ with great integrity and interpersonal skills.
• Disband the Steering Group and Change Champions groups as soon as you’ve started the change. You’ve only just begun and people will naturally revert to old habits if given the chance.

It’s important to involve people early in the planning process so that they understand the case for change and feel able to contribute their ideas.

Remember I mentioned earlier that everyone is different? That needs to be reflected in the design of the workspace. For Activity Based Working to be successful, you must have a blend of spaces that work for the different needs of our five senses, such as noise levels, light, textures and acoustics. Many banks that introduced ABW struggled to get it off the ground because employees found an all-open-plan environment challenging because of increased noise levels and an underestimated demand for private spaces.

Take time to plan the office space carefully. Effective design and management of space are critical to avoiding overcrowding or under-utilised areas, which could lead to dissatisfaction. Ensure that spaces for private meetings and calls remain that way and are not abused. Consider the employer as a workplace consumer because, with a consumer-orientated mindset, we seek to deliver experiences that delight, just in the same way we seek to for our customers and clients.

Establish clear guidelines for using the space to prevent misuse and confusion, especially from hybrid workers who might struggle to book the space they need when they arrive at the office.

Above all, set the tone for a culture of collaboration, cohesion and care for how every colleague benefits from enjoying a shared workplace. Training for team leaders and team-building activities help greatly with establishing and sustaining a cooperative culture.

The rise of Activity-Based Working is more than just a trend. It’s a response to the growing demand for flexibility in how and where we work from employees. As hybrid working becomes the norm in modern business, ABW has the potential to be a game-changer, giving employees the autonomy they crave while fostering innovation and collaboration.

However, success requires more than embracing flexibility; organisations must rethink how they support their workforce through thoughtful design, clear communication, and robust technology. ABW, when executed well, can be a catalyst for broader cultural change, shaping the future of work in ways we are only beginning to understand with the dawn of AI. But that’s another topic for another time…