The Relation between Activity-based Work Environments and Office Workers’ Job Attitudes and Vitality.

Wohlers, Christina; Hartner-Tiefenthaler, Martina; Hertel, Guido

Abstract

Activity-based work environments (WEs) aim to support office workers doing both concentrated and communicative work, but empirical tests are rare. We expected the availability of different WEs to be beneficial for job attitudes and vitality, and that the benefits would be stronger when available WEs were perceived to fit to tasks, and when workers used WEs appropriately. As predictors of appropriate use of WEs, we postulated need for routine seeking and trust in management. Hypotheses were tested in a questionnaire study with 560 office workers from different organizations. The availability of WEs that support undisturbed working was positively related to job attitudes and vitality. For WEs that support communicative work, job attitudes and vitality were additionally explained by the relative fit to the task and appropriate use of WEs. Finally, appropriate use of WEs correlated positively with trust in management and negatively with workers’ need for routine seeking.