Change management - New Ways of Working

Abstract: Many organisations have moved into an activity based workplace (ABW), and this have led to great changes for the employees’ ways of working. The workplace is supposed to provide with different workstations/environments for the employees, where they can choose the environment that best suits their task at hand, such as concentration areas or open space. This means that the employees do not have assigned seats, and they are free to choose between different workstations. The ABW is supposed to improve factors such as collaboration, satisfaction, flexibility and productivity. In order for the employees to work in ABW, the employees’ ways of working needs to change, and this is usually referred to as New Ways of Working (Newwow). It is not unusual that organisations have had problems with the implementation of Newwow, where the implementation have not been as successful as hoped. This master thesis looks into the problems that occurs when Newwow is implemented, and what factors that are important when organisations changes from traditional ways to Newwow. This thesis has been a qualitative study, interviewing people from three Swedish organisations that have implemented ABW, as well as interviewing consultants that helps customers with the implementation.    The human factor is important in the change, and there is a need to get people on-board in order to create a workplace where the employees can thrive. Many different things needs to be done in an implementation of Newwow and ABW, such as physical workplace, digitalisation, work culture and more. In this master thesis the human perspective have had more focus, as humans are going to work in the workplace and the goal is to improve their work. Many of the difficulties is usually to get humans on-board with the implementation. Making some deviations from the ABW is ok if the reasons are justified, for example someone gets to sit on an assigned seat due to health reasons. A clear and open communication has proven to be important factors for a successful implementation. Further research in Newwow and ABW is important, as many organisations are moving to ABW, which affects many employees.