The interaction of activity, space and cost variables in office workstation sharing

Purpose – The growth in flexible working by employees in many office‐based organisations means that workstation sharing at the employer's premises is increasingly attractive. However, because of peaks and troughs in demand it is difficult to decide how many workstations should be provided. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cost‐effectiveness of alternative workstation sharing strategies. Design/methodology/approach – The study used an agent‐based simulation model with two input variables: the employees' reaction if they are blocked (i.e. they find that all workstations are already occupied), and the number of workstations at the employer's premises. The simulation was run for 56 scenarios. The results were evaluated by assigning cost penalties for workstations, blocking and displacement; there were eight cost regimes reflecting different organisational characteristics. Findings – The simulations showed trade‐offs between the activity and space variables, in terms of utilisation, blocking and displacement. When costs were applied the output of the simulation runs, the most cost‐effective scenarios varied markedly with the different cost regimes. Research limitations/implications – The variation in optimum strategies with different model input values suggests that cost‐effective workstation sharing strategies must be developed on a case‐by‐case basis. The simplifying assumptions in the model must be considered when applying the findings to real organisations. Originality/value – Quantified analysis of the cost‐effectiveness of workstation sharing strategies has not been found previously in the literature.