Kyra Voll’s dissertation “The workplace ecosystem: Understanding and managing hybrid working environments with consideration for employee preferences and outcomes” aimed to provide a systematic overview of the workplace in hybrid work environments. Insides are obtained based on five articles, in which the different physical workplaces (work from home, office, workation) and the digital space are analyzed in terms of employees’ preferences and outcomes and the effects on workplace management.
The dissertation aimed to answer the research: How can companies design the physical organization of work in hybrid working environments to deploy their human and space resources efficiently? In detail, four sub-questions got addressed: (1) What role does employee workplace choice play in hybrid working environments and how can corporates use this knowledge to improve employee work success?, (2) How do different workplaces outside the corporate office influence employee preferences and outcomes?, (3) How can companies foster the adoption of the digital workplace to manage the interface between the physical and digital workplace? And (4) How can companies react flexibly to changing requirements regarding their office space? To explore these questions, the researcher adopted an ecosystemic approach.
In short, the dissertation has shown that employees choose their workplace for almost the same reasons that also influence their satisfaction and productivity. This new focus on the affecting determinants of work success and workplace choice enables workplace management to better decide which strategy to pursue to increase the success of employees. Through the differentiated views on several workplaces in the hybrid working environment,
The key findings of the dissertation and the research context explained why employees decide to work at a certain workplace, how the environmental and social systems influence their outcomes, and why companies have advantages in hybrid working environments when focusing on their employee preferences and adapting their workplace management strategy accordingly.
The systematic investigation of the workplace ecosystem, including the physical and digital workplaces and the various influencing factors, made it possible to further develop the physical organization of work in hybrid working environments. Drawing on insights that arise from applying theories and methods of different disciplines to the context of the workplace ecosystem, each consideration in itself and the holistic perspective on the workplace ecosystem provided valuable contributions for research, practice and society.
The thesis can be accessed here and refers to the list of papers published in journals: https://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/28590/1/Dissertation_Kyra-Johanna-Voll_final.pdf