A new hope: A holistic framework for understanding workplace experience

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel conceptual framework to holistically consider workplace and its intrinsic organisational value. The framework recognises ‘workplace’ as a polyseme, a single word that has multiple associated meanings, and embraces (rather than refutes) its plural spatial, technological and cultural interpretations, alongside interrelated business impacts. To substantiate the framework, this paper reprises and synthesises seminal workplace-related models, including Trist and Bamforth’s ‘sociotechnical systems’ and Becker and Steele’s ‘workplace ecosystem’, among others. Consequently, this paper explores how the framework provides a new opportunity to consider ‘workplace experience’, and offers an ontology to substantively understand, evaluate and potentially even benchmark workplace experience holistically, for diverse and distributed organisational workplaces, making its utility both work location and sector agnostic. The framework therefore not only broadens the scope for workplace insights and decision making, but it also offers a basis from which to critique other assertions or claims of truth about workplace and workplace experience. While the immediate audience for this paper — readers of this journal — will most likely be invested in physical workplace elements first and foremost, the framework promotes collaborative opportunities through wider appreciation and understanding of different workplace perspectives, as well as their interconnectedness and interdependencies. The paper concludes with suggested opportunities and further areas for research and development.