Designing Post-Digital Hybrid Workplaces

Abstract

As modes of work are becoming more diverse and distributed, it necessitates a revaluation of the approaches taken in designing of future workplaces. This paper argues that we are moving towards work practices that are post-digital, hybrid and collaborative in nature, requiring a closer examination of the values and requirements expected for such a workplace. In this light, the paper presents a Systematic Literature Review of research pertinent to workplace dynamics, design and management within the last decade. Two themes of ‘quality of life and satisfaction’ and ‘productivity and collaboration’ were found to be key areas of focus in literature. Collectively factors contributing to work dynamics and performance under these two themes were: crowding, degree of connectivity, degree of sociability, employee culture and perception of work, fatigue and stress, indoor environmental quality, motivation, conditions of the remote site of work, degree and culture of communication, degree of control, distractions with non-work related content, infrastructure for effective communication and interaction, mobility and flexibility, office layout and degree of spaciousness, and work and cognitive load. These raised a number of expectations for the  workplace, which this paper argues renders the future workplace as a tempo-spatial phenomenon, juxtaposing constructs of the personal/individual with the social collective, dysconnectivity with connectivity and asynchrony with synchrony within a network of functions distributed across physical and digital spaces of work.