Office type, performance, and well-being

By Workplace Strategist · Updated 15 September 2026

Questions about office type often trigger strong opinions. Some see the traditional office as the safest option for focus and control. Others see flexible or hybrid arrangements as the route to better effectiveness, attractiveness, and future readiness. The problem is that the debate is often too simple.

This article explains why office type matters for performance and well-being, but also why the label on the workplace is rarely enough analysis. In practice, it is often the implementation, usability, norms, and leadership around the model that determine whether the outcome becomes strong or weak.

Why office type is an important but overly simple explanatory model

Office type matters because it sets basic conditions for how work is carried out. Traditional offices often rely on fixed workstations in cellular offices, shared rooms, or open-plan layouts. Flexible and activity-based offices instead rely on people choosing settings based on the task. Hybrid work adds another layer by combining office time with work elsewhere.

All of those models affect how employees experience control, accessibility, privacy, collaboration, and movement through the day. That is why it makes sense to ask how they affect performance and well-being.

But office type becomes too simple as an explanation when it is treated as if the label decides everything. A traditional office can function very differently depending on privacy levels, adaptability, and collaboration support. A hybrid arrangement can function very differently depending on home conditions, policies, leadership, and the quality of the office environment. The label is therefore only the beginning of the analysis.

What research on performance and well-being actually indicates

The most useful way to interpret research and practice is not to search for a single answer to which office type is best. It is to understand which mechanisms shape the outcome.

In traditional offices, predictability and control can be clear strengths. People know where they will work and may experience greater control over their immediate environment, especially in cellular offices. At the same time, the same setup may limit access to different kinds of fit-for-purpose settings and make the workplace less adaptable as the organisation changes.

Hybrid arrangements offer different strengths. Reduced commuting, greater flexibility, and broader recruitment reach can be real advantages. But hybrid work can also create challenges for culture, spontaneous collaboration, ergonomics, social belonging, and boundaries between work and private life.

The most reasonable conclusion is therefore not that one office type is always good or always bad. It is that performance and well-being depend on how well the chosen model supports the real demands people face in work.

Why implementation and everyday governance often matter more than the office label

Many weak workplace decisions happen when organisations stop at the typology. They choose an office concept and assume that the advantages will follow automatically. In practice, everyday governance often matters more.

If a traditional environment lacks adaptability, it can become rigid as working methods and team structures change. If a hybrid arrangement lacks clear policies and capable management, it can lead to miscommunication, social isolation, and blurred expectations. If an activity-based office does not provide the right support for focus, privacy, and accessibility, it may create more friction than value.

That means implementation must be analysed as seriously as the model itself. The question is not only which office type the organisation chooses, but how well that type is translated into functioning daily practice.

How hybrid work changes the relationship between office type and outcomes

Hybrid work has made the relationship between office type and outcomes more complex. Once part of the work happens at home or in satellite offices, some of the strengths and weaknesses move outside the main office.

Home may provide stronger focus for some employees, but not everybody has good ergonomics or suitable conditions for sustainable work there. Satellite offices may reduce commute time and support balance, but can also weaken a sense of context, connection, and everyday belonging.

Hybrid work also makes management more important. If managers are not equipped for remote leadership, and if teams lack clear agreements about attendance, communication, and collaboration, misunderstandings and uneven work quality are more likely. Hybrid work therefore has to be understood as a system of environment, norms, tools, and management rather than a simple split between places.

Which decisions teams need to make before choosing or defending an office type

Before a team chooses or defends an office type, it should ask more precise questions than the ones that usually dominate the debate.

Which tasks require strong concentration, and how often do they occur? Which forms of collaboration need to be spontaneous, and which can be planned? How much adaptability is required as the organisation grows or changes? Which ergonomic and social risks arise when work shifts away from the office?

Teams also need to understand which levels of predictability, privacy, and belonging are required by different groups. A solution that works well for some roles may work much less well for others. That is why office type always has to be interpreted through the real demands of the work.

How workplace strategy translates research into practical choices

This is where workplace strategy does its real work. It translates research, practice, and organisational needs into concrete decisions on right-sizing, diversification, usability, collaboration, and change management.

Instead of asking which office type is best in general, a strong workplace strategy asks: which solution offers the best support for this organisation’s goals, ways of working, and change needs? Which risks need to be managed? And which supporting structures are required for the chosen model to work over time?

That is a more demanding analysis, but also a more useful one. It makes it possible to move from abstract office debates to decisions that actually improve performance and well-being.

What to do differently in the next workplace decision

If your team wants to make better decisions about office type, start with four steps.

First, stop treating office type as a final answer. Treat it as a hypothesis that must be tested against the organisation’s needs.

Second, analyse performance and well-being through mechanisms such as control, ergonomics, concentration, belonging, and adaptability.

Third, assess hybrid work as a complete system. Environment, policies, tools, and management all need to support the same logic.

Fourth, use workplace strategy to translate research into practical choices about environment, ways of working, and change support.

That makes the decision about office type less ideological and more useful for the real work of the organisation.

Dr. Seddigh defended his doctoral thesis in 2015 with the title Office type, performance and well-being. A study of how personality and work tasks interact with contemporary office environments and ways of working”. Below you will find the abstract, summary of each study and a link for download.

Please download the thesis here.

Abstract

Today, many organisations are adopting offices that have an open design with or without flexible seating. While advocates of open-plan offices propose that these office types lead to cost savings and aid inter and intra-team communication, opponents argue that these office types are associated with decreased performance and worsened health among employees. This thesis investigates how the type of office (cell offices, shared room offices, small open-plan offices, medium-sized open plan offices, large open-plan offices and flex offices) influences employee health and performance, and whether this is different for different personalities and jobs with different concentration demands. Data were gathered by means of surveys and cognitive tests from five organisations with different office types

Study I

In Study I (N=1241), the aim was to investigate the main effect of office type on indicators of health and performance and the interaction effect of office type with the need to concentrate in order to carry out work tasks. Office type alone was associated with distraction and cognitive stress in such a way that cell offices were associated with fewest problems, followed by flex offices, while open-plan offices were associated with most problems. While employees in open-plan offices and employees in flex offices reported more problems as the need for concentration increased, employees in cell offices reported the same level of problems regardless of the need of concentration.

Study II

Study II (N=527) investigated how performance on a memory test was affected during normal working conditions as compared to a quiet baseline. There was a negative dose-response relationship between the size of the open-plan office environment and the drop in word recall during the normal working condition. However, Study II also showed that individuals working in cell offices had as high a drop in performance during normal working conditions as did those working in large open-plan office environments.

Study III

Study III (N=1133–1171) focused on the interaction effect between office type and personality. The personality trait agreeableness interacted with office type on the outcome variables distraction and job satisfaction. Specifically, Study III may indicate that as offices get more open and flexible, agreeable people will report more problems. In conclusion, the studies in the present thesis have implications for practice and suggest that office type impacts on employee health and performance, while concentration demands of the job and agreeableness moderate the effects. Although employees report higher level of distraction in open-plan office environments, when performance on a demanding task is measured, cell offices are not as favourable during normal working conditions as self-reported data usually indicate. Organisations should also be aware that, among open-plan offices, small open-plan offices are associated with fewer problems.
Keywords: Office type, open-plan office, flex office, cell office, performance, job satisfaction, distraction, self-rated health, well-being, cognitive stress, exhaustion, individual differences, personality, concentration, stimulus screening ability, memory.
Please download the thesis here.

Source

Workplace Strategist internal method and training material on office types, hybrid work, and evidence-based workplace strategy.