Designing Workspaces For Success: A Refined Activity-Based Workspace Model for Boosting Employee Productivity

Abstract

Activity-Based Workspace (ABW), which offers a variety of space options tailored to different professional activities, is becoming the standard for companies seeking to enhance both employee productivity and space optimization. However, despite their growing adoption, challenges such as time lost in finding suitable workspaces, reduced privacy, and limited personalization raise concerns about whether the ABW model effectively balances employee well-being with spatial efficiency. We argue that one of the intrinsic constraints in implementing ABW is that workplaces accommodate diverse job functions, each with distinct spatial requirements that do not necessarily align. To address this, we introduce a data-driven decision-making model designed to facilitate ABW, evaluating the specific needs of different job categories within organizations. Our research is conducted in collaboration with employees from Mantu, a global consulting company with 8,500 professionals in the service sector. We propose a cosine distance based matching model to determine the best mix of workspace typologies for different job categories based on their activities. In this paper, we present the findings for a sample of four job category clusters: IT, Consultancy, Sales & Marketing, and Finance. The alignment is made with five workspace typologies classified based on their degree of enclosure (open, closed, semi-closed) and their suitability for individual, group, or hybrid work. The match is guided by employee-voted criteria, including autonomy, collaboration, creativity, concentration, oral/visual privacy, and confidentiality.