Coworking Spaces: The Better Home Office? A Psychosocial and Health-Related Perspective on an Emerging Work Environment

Abstract

With the ongoing flexibilization of work, new trends concerning work outside the company’s premises such as coworking spaces are on the rise. Coworking spaces are designed to offer collaboration and community in furnished and equipped workspaces on a rental base. There is a growing body of scientific literature on coworking spaces with empirical results of qualitative and quantitative research. The present study adds to the latter by examining psychosocial demands experienced by coworkers in Germany based on a quantitative survey (n = 112). Among coworkers the home office was or still is another frequently used workplace. However, can the coworking space be seen as a better alternative to the home office in terms of work- and performance-related, social, environmental and health-related aspects? Results showed moderate to low psychosocial demands regarding quantitative workloads. Compared to the home office, the coworking space proved to be the preferred work arrangement. Results are discussed with regard to current literature and workplace design. In conclusion, coworking spaces can be seen as an alternative to the home office that was highly valued in the present sample. It is recommended to further emphasize aspects of work environment and ergonomics in order to create health-promoting and satisfying workplaces.

Understanding users’ and hosts’ motives to co-working space: Case of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

“…Amongst the various criteria developed, the concept of satisfaction has become the most widely used in evaluating work environments. It has been used to assess the performance of all types of work environments (Hill et al , 2003; Robelski et al , 2019) as it indicates the general levels of success, measures the users’ experience, points out the irksome aspect of work environments and predicts users’ responses to future work environments.…”

Analyse ergonomischer Arbeitsplatzmerkmale in Coworking Spaces

“…45 % der Coworker zuvor im Homeoffice gearbeitet haben [11]. Darüber hinaus arbeiten 82 % der Coworker weiterhin zumindest teilweise von zuhause aus [4], wobei vor allem die soziale Interaktion von vielen Coworkern im Vergleich zum Homeoffice wertgeschätzt wird [24]. Zudem gilt Netzwerkarbeit als wesentliches Motiv für das Arbeiten in Coworking Spaces [8,12,18,23].…”

Bios and arrows: On time in health geographies

“…In terms of initial engagements, studies have shown, for example, how, under corporate planning, healthcare organizations purposefully attract and retain workers and clients by instilling particular affective atmospheres of competent, timely, energetic and passionate care (Ducey, 2007; Martin et al., 2019; Solomon, 2011). Other studies meanwhile have considered the atmospheres of well‐being, collaboration, community and creativity that emerge in novel working scenarios and spaces, such as with ‘coworking’ (Robelski et al., 2019; Waters‐Lynch & Duff, 2019).…”