Knowledge workers' stated preferences for important characteristics of activity-based workspaces

It is important for organizations to support employees with suitable workspaces during different activities. Increasingly the activity-based office is seen as the optimal solution, as it provides people with choice between different types of workspaces to perform specific activities. This study addresses the trade-offs knowledge workers make when choosing a workspace for performing three different categories of activities (individual concentration work, informal interactions, and formal interactions). A stated choice experiment was performed through a questionnaire among 251 Dutch knowledge workers in 14 organizations, measuring preferences for hypothetical workspaces described by their six most relevant aspects. Multinomial logit models were estimated to identify the workspace preferences during each activity. Additionally, Latent class models were estimated to find possible segments of workers with specific preferences that need to be supported differently by workplace managers. Findings showed that preferences for psychosocial design aspects (noise, workspace enclosure and control) were more important for workspace selection than indoor environmental quality aspects. They also show more differences between specific activities. Also, not everybody finds full enclosure important for individual concentrated work, and relatively older employees appear to be more critical about workspace suitability to support both formal and informal interaction.