New offices are built every day, and you may have heard of this new office concept ‘Activity Based Working‘ or ‘ABW’, already but in case you haven't, here is an explanation.

Activity Based Working is a concept to design your office in such a way, that it supports work activities optimally, rather than drawing a boundary around it’s user’s personal spaces (i.e. that’s when everyone sits at a more or less uniform desk with all facilities and gear in one place, like a screen, computer, phone, stapler, sticky notes, etc). In practice, it means that an ABW space fosters a variety of office environments, that are all supporting different activities, performed by its residents in their work. In an average ABW office, that would be a mix of team desks, quiet concentration rooms, telephone booths and a meeting room. More advanced ABW offices may also offer stand up meeting tables, a brainstorm area, multi media rooms, a lounge area and stand up working stations. So in effect, an ABW workplace will have a creative environment, a "traditional desk" space, quiet rooms, meeting rooms, basically areas that suit the kind of work!

All ABW spaces should have a fast wireless network, and in all, facilities are shared between coworkers and management, people do not have their "own" desk. Of course this requires careful analysis of your business and the types of work being conducted. This would lead to a hybrid model of old and new based on circumstances.

This is how Activity Based Working works:

Your day is filled with tasks you need to do. All tasks require a typical attention from you, that is not uniform. For some tasks you need to think creatively, for some you’ll need to collaborate, and for others you simply need to do a couple of mundane chores. In your ABW space, you choose your desk, room or area according to the task that you’re about to do. The office environment is designed to support you in doing that particular task.

Benefits of Activity Based Working

• you concentrate better
• you are more productive
• you are more active and less sedentary during your work day
• you are more likely to collaborate and share ideas, insights and skills
• you are more mindful of your tasks, activities and productivity
• so you enjoy working more

And some important notes for best results

• the attendance at a traditional desk is on average about 50% at peak hours. So half the time during office hours (!), that desk is empty anyway. An ABW office accomodates far more people with a higher level of individual comfort. However, if cost reduction is your main concern, and you don’t value the above benefits equally or more, your staff will not buy it and it will fail
• both formal and informal leaders in your team or organisation should model and lead the desired behaviour in the ABW space

By working activity based, you condition your mind and body to get the most out of time and space and the good thing is, you get better at it every day.

What is the essential difference with a traditional office?

A more traditional office, on the other hand, that facilitates every imaginable task in one physical place (your own personalised desk), will not offer a suitable environment for concentrating on any one task at the time. You’re always distracted at least a bit by all the things you could do at your desk. So you cannot fully single task. And people are most productive when they single or support task.

Desks are not "owned" but are transitory in nature. If you are in a workshop for four hours then you do not need a desk. Once the workshop is over you might move to a collaboration area with your colleagues to appraise them of th outcomes and garner additional context. Once this has completed you may move to a quiet space to consolidate your thoughts and write them up and finally you might move to a twp person meeting room to divuldge the outcomes to your boss.

Some other frequently asked questions I get sometimes:

Q: I work in an open plan office with hot desks. Is that the same?

A: No, it is very different. Open plan simply means a traditional office but without the walls. And hot desks are the same as personalised desks, but with a different person every day (if you’re lucky). Both open plan and hot desk offices support all activities at one desk.

Q: When we change to an ABW floor plan, do we get those trendy lounge egg chairs to relax in?

A: That depends. If your team needs regular lounging in egg chairs for getting their work done, by all means get the egg chairs. But there are endless options to use the space otherwise, too

Q: I feel exposed and not comfortable when I don’t have my own space. Can we make an exception for me?

A: Thank you for sharing your concerns. That helps others show their own vulnerability, too. Why do you feel uncomfortable? Many professionals have eliminated those feelings by sharing their results, asking explicit feedback from their coworkers and managers about their work, and improved their productivity because of that. Now they are proud of their work and eager to share their skills so others can learn from them

Q: I’d love to do ABW but we don’t have an office like that, so I can’t, or can I?

A: Yes you can! By starting to think about your tasks in terms of ‘how can I best perform this task?’ and ‘what environment that I have access to, best supports me in doing that?’, you can choose to sit in a quiet library when doing concentration work, or invite others for a coffee and chat about your project in a near cafe, make your phone calls standing up (you’ll be more brief when standing), or even do stand up meetings.

Activity based working (ABW) is based on the premise that no employee ‘owns’ or has an assigned workstation. Rather, the broader workspace provides employees with a variety of predetermined activity areas that allow them to conduct specific tasks including learning, focusing, collaborating and socialising.In Australia, recent research indicates that one in three organisations are implementing or planning to implement flexible ways of working including ABW (Colliers International Office Tenant Survey 2012).

This new way of working is positioned as a team-orientated approach which must be flexible enough for diverse teams to adapt their allocated home zones to their needs. Based on my experience, for ABW to be successful, the losses and gains should be made explicit with the new focus on team ownership emphasised: individual ownership of a workstation is lost and team ownership of a home zone is gained. The transition from a ‘me’ to a ‘we’ mindset is one that needs to be supported by a structured change management program in which leaders play an imperative role.Leaders must actively help their employees overcome their resistance to a change to ABW and ensure that they remain empowered and engaged from a work and social perspective. Promoting employee connections and a sense of belongingness and place remains relevant at work and should become a more active behaviour in ABW leaders. For leaders, this means acknowledging that employees have an emotional reaction to their physical workspace.

Trust is fundamental to an ABW workspace and leaders must proactively demonstrate trust of their employees with less visibility and encourage employee trust in them. Methods such as providing support (emotional and function), control, and communication is essential in developing trust and should be emphasised in ABW. Senior leadership sponsorship is also imperative to any change and should be demonstrated in this new way of working.

An ABW approach is based on appraising performance through work outputs instead of work processes and requires training and support from HR (change in performance appraisal policies and procedures) and IT (change in the mobile capacity of systems and technologies). The relationship between the manager and employee changes in ABW, and formal and informal training should be provided to support this change.

Finally, for ABW to be successful, it must be relevant to the workforce: who they are and what they do at work. ABW is not for everyone and is more appropriate for a workforce that is mobile or is planning to embrace mobility with the support of its leadership team. It may be that ABW is applied to some teams or departments within an organisation, but not all, as is the case in Australia.