Employees’ everyday experiences of placeless office environments at a major French bank suggest that hybrid working is most effective when employees can choose where and when they work. Greater flexibility, an effective right to disconnect and employee continuous involvement in workplace design are among the key recommendations of research by organisational scientist Marie Hasbi.
Hasbi examined how employees experience changes to corporate workplaces, including flexible offices, hybrid working, relocation to urban outskirts and standardised architectural design. These approaches have expanded globally since their emergence in the 1960s, gaining particular momentum following the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘However, their introduction is often accompanied by rules and regulations that structure and control employees’ everyday behaviour, practices and movements, encouraging uniformity,’ says Hasbi.
Her research argues that these developments warrant closer scrutiny, particularly regarding their impact on employees’ everyday experiences.
Hybrid working: flexibility versus workplace rules
The transition to hybrid working revealed several paradoxes, as workplace changes were designed, implemented and experienced in different ways.
Hasbi explains: ‘Employees reported excessive connectivity during remote working, which reduced their ability to concentrate and negatively affected their well-being outside working hours. Hybrid workers also highlighted the need for flexibility in managing remote-working and office routines, recognising that different routines are better suited to particular types of activities. The clean-desk policy was another source of friction. Employees reported that it wasted time and drained their energy.’
Workplace design often overlooks employees’ everyday needs
Hasbi found that placeless office designs and workplace norms often overlooked employees’ bodily needs, individual differences, sensations and desires.
‘For example, transparent external and internal office designs reduced employees’ privacy, while workplace rules failed to recognise the importance of informal activities such as having fun and sharing food with close colleagues,’ Hasbi explains.
In response to the alienation associated with placeless workplaces, employees developed creative forms of resistance to prevailing norms. However, these initiatives were not always successful. According to Hasbi: ‘Although these initiatives sometimes had an impact, they were often countered by the introduction or reinforcement of additional rules.’
Right to disconnect and greater flexibility in hybrid working
Hasbi’s findings have important implications for policymakers and decision-makers responsible for digital work regulations.
She recommends a public debate on digital exhaustion and the need for an effective legal right to disconnect outside working hours. Her research also provides evidence that hybrid working is more effective when employees are allowed to choose where and when they work remotely.
In addition, policymakers are encouraged to rethink the development of urban outskirts and ensure that workers actively participate in placemaking strategies.
Co-creating more adaptable workplaces
Hasbi also offers recommendations for practitioners involved in planning spatial and temporal changes in organisations. ‘Rather than relying on detailed and rigid planning, practitioners should recognise that both space and time are dynamic,’ says Hasbi.
Her research suggests co-creating continuous transformation with users at successive levels of project management, including the design of workplace environments and working patterns.The same principle should apply to behavioural norms. Rules governing practices should be reduced where they conflict with employees’ bodily needs.
Two-year study at a major French bank
Hasbi’s research was based on fieldwork at a major French bank that redesigned its headquarters to accommodate hybrid working.
Most employees relocated to a new campus outside Paris, designed as a flexible office with open-plan areas and collaborative spaces. Data was also collected from two other divisions located in central and western Paris.
This approach enabled a comparison between central Paris and its outskirts, providing a broader understanding of different aspects of placelessness.
Over a period of two years, data was collected in three phases, with the researcher remaining known to participants throughout the study. The first phase examined the planning and design processes. The second focused on new workplace practices, routines and employees’ initial reactions following the transformation. The final phase, conducted a year later, explored the everyday meanings and behaviours that had emerged.