The desk divide
The adoption of unassigned seating strategies has grown exponentially in the past decade, and in the last three years especially: the share of employees using unassigned settings has soared from 38% in 2020 to 60% in 2023.
It would be easy to assume the pandemic is behind this latest growth. Easy, but wrong. Our data shows clearly that the trend was underway long before the emergence of Covid-19. In 2014, 87% of the employees we surveyed had their own desk and just 13% didn’t. Yet by 2019 – still pre-pandemic – the proportion of workers with assigned desks had tumbled 20 percentage points (pp) to 67%.
Instead, the slow-but-steady adoption of unassigned desk policies signals a wider shift in the way organisations are using their workplaces. For some, it is a way to save costs by reducing real estate footprints. For others, it may be to support business objectives like productivity and innovation, or to enhance collaboration and spontaneity. Others still may want to encourage knowledge exchange across teams, creating more opportunities for informal interaction and serendipitous encounters, and even possibly motivate employees to move more, to benefit their physical health. Some just want to maximise the use of their space.
Add in hybrid working, which means increasing numbers of employees working remotely for significant parts of their week, and it is clear why unassigned strategies are tempting for so many organisations.
However, the data also shows that despite the benefits, the rate of adoption of unassigned strategies varies significantly from region to region, and industry to industry.
The four regions that had the biggest data representation in The Value of Variety, our latest study into the unassigned workplace strategies and the role variety plays in their success, were:
Comparing the data from these reveals some key regional differences. First, Oceania leads the way in the adoption of unassigned strategies. In total, 81% of workplaces surveyed in Oceania have an unassigned strategy – a significant proportion. But perhaps more importantly, most of those workplaces are also committed to providing employees with diverse work settings (54% of the workplaces are unassigned with good variety, defined as a minimum 50% satisfaction score with the ‘variety of different types of workspace’). Less than one in five workplaces have a predominantly assigned strategy in Oceania.
Europe also demonstrates an tendency for more flexible concepts, with nearly seven out of 10 (68%) workplaces having an unassigned approach. However, in terms of offering variety, it falls slightly behind Oceania. Among unassigned workplaces, the number of offices with good and poor variety is fairly even (35% and 33% respectively).
In stark contrast, North America includes the biggest share (65%) of workplaces with a predominantly assigned strategy, and the lowest share (15%) of unassigned workplaces with good variety.
Asia also has a similar distribution (63%) of workplaces with an assigned strategy, but a better share (22%) of unassigned workplaces with good variety.
These regional differences can be attributed to cultural, economic and spatial factors, many of which are intertwined.
For example, Oceania’s clear leaning towards unassigned workplaces with good variety can be seen as a marker of a progressive workplace culture focused on flexibility and connection. Similarly, Europe’s inclination towards unassigned policies may have cultural determinants (after all, ABW originated on the continent). In contrast, the tendency in North America and Asia towards assigned desk strategies may reflect more traditional corporate structures with hierarchical organisational cultures.
Adoption of assigned and unassigned strategies also varied greatly across the different industries we analysed. The biggest industry sectors represented in The Value of Variety were:
Industries that are more inclined towards unassigned strategies are ‘Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals’, ‘Government & Public Administration’ and ‘Information Technology, Software and the Internet’. In these sectors, about seven in every 10 workplaces have implemented flexible seating policies.
‘Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals’ and ‘Information Technology, Software and the Internet’ also led the way in terms of the variety of space offered, with 44% and 47% respectively being unassigned with good variety. ‘Government & Public Administration’, on the other hand, has a smaller proportion of workplaces with good variety, however, 31% of workplaces measured within the public sector being unassigned with good variety is still a testament to the feasibility of offering the right variety and excellent workplace experience even with possibly more constrained budgets.
‘Utilities, Oil and Energy’ and ‘Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering’ tended towards assigned: around half of the workplaces had a predominantly assigned approach (48% and 56%).
Perhaps the most interesting sector, however, was ‘Banking, Investment, Insurance and Financial Services’. Here the split between unassigned and assigned was even, at 50%. What’s more, the proportion of unassigned workplaces also included an even share of good and poor variety workplaces (25% each), showing that financial organisations are choosing one approach or the other across portfolios. It’s important to note that the distribution across sectors comes from a variety of strategies across organisations. Any organisation is likely to have a mix of assigned, unassigned with poor variety, and unassigned with good variety for many possible reasons. It’s possible that new concepts may not have yet been deployed across entire portfolios. And even then, you may not get it right every time, leading to poor variety in some locations. Ultimately, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Each organisation must identify and implement the seating strategy that best suits its unique needs and dynamics.