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

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 scientifi...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Robelski, Swantje, Keller, Helena, Harth, Volker, Mache, Stefanie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6651795/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31277440
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132379
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author Robelski, Swantje
Keller, Helena
Harth, Volker
Mache, Stefanie
author_facet Robelski, Swantje
Keller, Helena
Harth, Volker
Mache, Stefanie
author_sort Robelski, Swantje
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-66517952019-08-08 Coworking Spaces: The Better Home Office? A Psychosocial and Health-Related Perspective on an Emerging Work Environment Robelski, Swantje Keller, Helena Harth, Volker Mache, Stefanie Int J Environ Res Public Health Article 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. MDPI 2019-07-04 2019-07 /pmc/articles/PMC6651795/ /pubmed/31277440 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132379 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Robelski, Swantje
Keller, Helena
Harth, Volker
Mache, Stefanie
Coworking Spaces: The Better Home Office? A Psychosocial and Health-Related Perspective on an Emerging Work Environment
title Coworking Spaces: The Better Home Office? A Psychosocial and Health-Related Perspective on an Emerging Work Environment
title_full Coworking Spaces: The Better Home Office? A Psychosocial and Health-Related Perspective on an Emerging Work Environment
title_fullStr Coworking Spaces: The Better Home Office? A Psychosocial and Health-Related Perspective on an Emerging Work Environment
title_full_unstemmed Coworking Spaces: The Better Home Office? A Psychosocial and Health-Related Perspective on an Emerging Work Environment
title_short Coworking Spaces: The Better Home Office? A Psychosocial and Health-Related Perspective on an Emerging Work Environment
title_sort coworking spaces: the better home office? a psychosocial and health-related perspective on an emerging work environment
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6651795/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31277440
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132379
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