Tim Hooson, principal at architectural firm Jasmax ‘
personalising their work area, which can be quite unsettling for employees, she adds.
‘‘Some organisations are more suited to it than others. Academics would hate it,’’ she says.
Till agrees people can be territorial and some may prefer a place for their things.
‘‘I’ve found that it can be a point of contention for 20 per cent of the people for a few weeks, then it disappears.
‘‘Sometimes you will get a very small percentage who never adapt to that way of working because innately they could be CAVE men, which stands for ‘consistently against virtually everything’.’’
So in some cases, ABW may not be suitable across an entire organisation.
AMP’s Georgeson says his administration and call centre teams have less activity-based working because they needed to be together to ensure effective communication between staff.
‘‘There isn’t one rule for everyone, but you’ve got to use it in a way that is sensible for the outcomes you want to achieve,’’ he says.
Some even contend that ABW may endanger staff health.
University of Auckland workplace psychology expert Helena Cooper-Thomas said managers need to consider whether people have lots of things they will need to carry around daily.
‘‘You have got greater danger of people having injuries at work – carrying folders, laptops around.
‘‘There is a seriously greater risk of accidents,’’ she says.
She thinks companies can help make the transition towards ABW more seamless by having upper management actively engaged with their employees, thereby creating a norm.
‘‘Norms around connectedness is really good, and obviously, senior people have got to be modelling that for people to follow it,’’ she says.
‘‘These norms can be fairly informal. If you see senior people who don’t have offices and are going around mingling, other people will follow and that’s just how it will be set up.’’
In her opinion, ABW is one of the single largest trends to hit New Zealand corporate workplaces ‘’and there probably won’t be another one as big as this in the next 10 to 15 years’’.