Activity-Based Working: The Office Design Guide for 2026

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The open-plan office was built on a promise.

Remove the walls between people, the logic went, and collaboration flows freely. Ideas cross-pollinate. Teams bond. Innovation accelerates. And real estate costs drop.

For two decades, corporations around the world accepted this logic and invested accordingly. Today, the research has returned its verdict — and it is not what the open-plan advocates predicted.

A systematic review of 46 empirical studies published between 2005 and 2022 found that open-plan offices can reduce real-estate costs but lead to lower performance levels, thereby imposing a productivity tax that outweighs the initial cost savings. More strikingly, a separate systematic review found consistent negative associations with health, satisfaction, and productivity — with not a single study measuring productivity finding a positive effect.

And the primary cause of these outcomes? Noise. There is little doubt that noise is the primary culprit for distraction in open offices. Open office workers waste twice as much time as those in private offices due to noise alone.

But the failure of the open-plan office does not mean the solution is returning to rows of cellular private offices. The organisations that have cracked the performance paradox have done so with a more sophisticated model: activity-based working — a workplace design philosophy that stops asking employees to do every type of work in the same kind of space, and instead designs the environment around the work itself.

This guide explains what activity-based working actually means, what the research says about its effectiveness, what the five essential workspace zones look like in practice, and why certified soundproof office pods are the infrastructure component that makes the whole system function.

Activity-based working (ABW) is a workplace strategy in which employees do not have assigned, permanent desks. Instead, they move through a variety of purpose-designed workspace zones throughout the day based on the task at hand — concentrating in quiet focus spaces for deep cognitive work, collaborating in open social zones for group ideation, taking calls in enclosed acoustic spaces, and meeting formally in dedicated rooms.

The concept is not new — it emerged in the Netherlands in the early 1990s through the work of consulting firm Veldhoen + Company — but its relevance has intensified considerably in the post-pandemic hybrid work era, where the average office attendance rate of 40–60% in most organisations makes dedicated individual desks an inefficient use of real estate and makes the quality of available workspace more important than its quantity.

ABW is not hot-desking. Hot-desking is a cost reduction measure — reducing desk count below headcount ratio to lower real estate costs. ABW is a performance optimisation measure — designing different types of space for different types of work. The difference matters enormously: hot-desking without purpose-specific workspace zones simply strips employees of their personal workspace without providing alternatives, and generates the dissatisfaction and performance loss the research predicts. ABW with well-designed zone variety produces measurable performance improvements.

ABW is not open-plan rebranding. A large open floor with some high-top tables and a few sofas is not ABW. Genuine ABW requires meaningfully distinct zones with genuinely different acoustic, visual, and spatial properties — including, critically, enclosed private spaces.

ABW is not suitable for every type of organisation. ABW works well for organisations where knowledge work is diverse — where the same employee spends portions of their day in individual concentration, collaborative discussion, and formal meeting. It works less well for roles that require sustained presence at a single fixed workstation.

The systematic review of 46 office design studies found that activity-based working has the potential to enhance collaboration and interaction, but is dependent on professional and proactive management — and specifically, on the provision of appropriate space types within the ABW environment.

The critical condition that distinguishes effective ABW from poorly executed ABW is the availability and quality of enclosed, quiet spaces for focused individual work. Employees in open-plan offices experienced a 66% decrease in their ability to focus on deep work tasks compared to those in private offices. The implication is direct: an ABW environment that does not provide high-quality enclosed focus spaces simply replicates the focus deficit of the open-plan office it replaced.

The empirical evidence does not support the anecdotal claims of increased collaboration and communication between open-plan office workers — and consistent negative associations with health, satisfaction, and productivity are found across the research base. ABW’s potential advantage over simple open-plan design lies precisely in its recognition of this evidence: it does not assume that open space produces collaboration. It designs specific conditions for collaboration and separate conditions for focus — and lets employees choose between them based on their current task.

The Gensler Global Workplace Survey (2023), which surveyed over 14,000 workers across 10 countries, found that high-performing workplaces offer a mix of spaces — employees need both collaborative areas and more private, quiet spaces for focused activities in order to achieve optimal performance. This finding — that performance requires both, not either/or — is the empirical foundation of the ABW model.

Effective ABW design requires at minimum five distinct zone types, each with genuinely differentiated acoustic and spatial characteristics. The following framework reflects the converging guidance from workplace design research and professional practice:

Purpose: Sustained individual cognitive work — complex writing, analysis, programming, financial modelling, confidential reading, deep problem-solving — that requires minimal acoustic interruption and complete speech privacy.

Acoustic requirement: Ambient noise ≤35 dB; Class A speech privacy (no intelligible speech audible from outside). This is the most demanding acoustic specification in the ABW environment, and the one that open-plan offices fail most completely to provide.

Design approach: Enclosed spaces with independently certified acoustic performance. Soundproof office pods are the preferred solution for this zone in most ABW deployments — they achieve Class A performance at a fraction of the cost of permanent construction, with no permit requirements and full mobility for reconfiguration.

HIGHKA specification for this zone: HIGHKA Model S (1 person) and Model M (1–2 persons) achieve 35 dB noise reduction certified to ISO 23351-1 Class A — the highest classification under the international standard for office pod acoustic performance. The six-layer composite acoustic structure targets the human speech frequency range (500 Hz–4 kHz) for maximum intelligibility reduction. Bidirectional patent-protected isolation ensures both inward acoustic privacy (focus) and outward speech containment (no disturbance to the open floor).

Purpose: Phone calls, video meetings, one-to-one discussions, and any audio communication that cannot be conducted from an open desk without creating mutual disruption — outbound voice disturbing neighbours, inbound ambient noise degrading call quality.

Acoustic requirement: Class A bidirectional speech privacy; acoustic quality sufficient for clear audio transmission. For video calls specifically, background noise inside the pod should be below 35 dB to avoid background noise appearing prominently in the call audio feed.

Design approach: Enclosed pods sized for 1–2 people, positioned accessibly from the main open work floor without requiring employees to leave the floor entirely.

HIGHKA specification for this zone: HIGHKA Model S and Model SL (2 persons) provide the acoustic enclosure required for professional call quality in both directions. The microwave radar breathing sensor ensures ventilation and lighting remain active throughout call sessions regardless of user stillness — eliminating the interruption that PIR-sensor pods create during stationary call activity.

Purpose: Two-to-four person collaborative work — team check-ins, project reviews, client call preparation, creative brainstorming sessions — that benefits from acoustic separation from the open floor without requiring full conference room formality.

Acoustic requirement: Partial acoustic separation from the open floor to protect occupants from ambient noise and to contain group discussion noise from disturbing adjacent focus workers. Does not require Class A isolation — moderate acoustic separation (20–25 dB) is sufficient for most group collaboration activities.

Design approach: Meeting pods or small enclosed rooms positioned between the open collaboration zone and the quiet focus zone, providing an acoustic gradient across the floor.

HIGHKA specification for this zone: HIGHKA Model L (2–4 persons) provides the capacity and acoustic performance appropriate for small group ABW collaboration spaces. The stepless 0–1,800 lm Osram LED lighting (3,000K–6,500K adjustable) enables the group to select a lighting mode appropriate for the collaboration style — energising cool-spectrum light for active ideation, warmer tones for discussion-based work.

Purpose: Informal group interaction, spontaneous conversation, team social connection, stand-up meetings, and any activity that genuinely benefits from the energy and accessibility of an open, visually connected environment. This is the zone the open-plan office originally promised — but could never deliver cleanly because it placed all work types in the same acoustic space.

Acoustic requirement: No high acoustic specification required — this zone is intended to be acoustically active. Its design should prevent noise from this zone bleeding into adjacent focus and quiet zones through strategic placement and partial acoustic barriers.

Design approach: Central, visible, energetically designed area with comfortable seating, standing surfaces, and informal meeting furniture. Hard surfaces are acceptable here — they contribute to the active acoustic energy that makes this zone feel different from the quiet zones.

Purpose: Structured group meetings, client presentations, sensitive management discussions, and formal discussions requiring both capacity for 4–8+ people and guaranteed speech privacy from outside the room.

Acoustic requirement: Full speech privacy, high-quality presentation technology, capacity for seated group discussion.

Design approach: Traditional private meeting rooms — either permanent construction or large-format meeting pods. For organisations where formal meeting demand is relatively low (fewer than 2 dedicated meeting rooms per 50 employees), HIGHKA Model XL (4–6 persons) provides enclosed meeting capacity without permanent construction.

HIGHKA specification for this zone: HIGHKA Model XL provides the capacity, acoustic isolation, and equipped meeting environment — including integrated display connectivity options — appropriate for formal ABW meeting spaces.

The key spatial principle in ABW layout design is the acoustic gradient — the intentional progression from high-acoustic-energy zones (active collaboration) to low-acoustic-energy zones (concentrated focus), with clear spatial and visual demarcation between them.

In practice, this means:

High-energy zones (Zone 4) are positioned centrally or near entrances. They are the arrival zone — the first impression of activity and culture that employees and visitors encounter. Their acoustic energy is visible and appropriate to their purpose.

Focus zones (Zone 1) are positioned at the perimeter, near windows, or in structurally quieter areas. They are away from circulation routes, away from kitchen and social areas, and shielded from the sightlines of the high-energy zone. Soundproof pods reinforce this positioning by providing guaranteed acoustic isolation regardless of their exact floor position.

Call and small group zones (Zones 2–3) act as the acoustic transition layer between the open collaboration zone and the focus zone — physically and acoustically graduated between the two extremes.

A floor plan that places pods randomly, without reference to the acoustic gradient, produces a suboptimal ABW environment. A floor plan that positions pods deliberately — within, at the edge of, or adjacent to the quiet zone, and away from the central energy zone — creates a coherent acoustic experience that employees intuitively navigate.

Transitioning from a traditional open-plan office to a genuine ABW environment is a strategic change management process, not simply a furniture procurement project. The following six-phase framework reflects the steps that research and professional practice identify as critical to successful ABW implementation.

Before any design decisions are made, collect data on how the current space is actually used. This means: badge or occupancy sensor data on desk utilisation rates across the week (most organisations find actual utilisation rates of 40–60% for nominally full-time staff); meeting room booking data showing average occupancy per booking and peak/off-peak demand patterns; a structured employee survey on the types of work they perform (proportion of day spent in individual focus vs. collaborative vs. call-based activity); and acoustic measurement at five or more floor points across different time periods.

This data determines the zone ratio appropriate for your specific organisation — the proportion of floor space allocated to each zone type. A professional services firm with high individual analytical work content requires a higher ratio of focus and call spaces than a product development team with high ideation and group review activity.

Based on the workplace analysis, design the zone ratio. Published ABW benchmarks suggest starting ratios, though these should always be calibrated to organisational data:

Select the specific acoustic infrastructure for each zone type. For focus and call zones specifically, specify soundproof pods with independently certified acoustic performance to ISO 23351-1. The minimum acceptable performance class for a focus or call zone pod in an ABW environment is ISO 23351-1 Class A (≥30 dB reduction), which corresponds to the acoustic privacy standard required for professional-grade individual and call work.

HIGHKA pods’ full specification — 35 dB noise reduction (ISO 23351-1 Class A), microwave radar breathing sensor, dual-channel active ventilation, 0–1,800 lm stepless Osram LED (3,000K–6,500K, CRI 90, UGR <20), EU E1 compliant materials, CE/UL/ISO/SGS certified — provides the complete technical basis for acoustic zone specification in a professional ABW implementation.

Develop the floor plan incorporating the acoustic gradient principle. Key layout decisions: entry zone positioning (active collaboration centrally, focus peripherally); pod placement within the quiet zone or at its edge; circulation routing that avoids running main traffic through the quiet zone; kitchen, social, and printing areas positioned away from focus zones; and if possible, visual demarcation (flooring change, ceiling treatment, lighting change) between high-energy and low-energy zones to communicate the acoustic expectation to occupants.

ABW implementation requires active change management. To make the open office model work, businesses need to have more private areas that allow workers to focus on projects with maximum privacy — and the transition to ABW only succeeds when employees understand and adopt the zone-usage norms. Hkofficepods

Communicate the zone design rationale clearly to all employees before deployment. Provide visible signage identifying each zone type and its intended use. Run a brief orientation — physical or digital — that explains how to use each zone type and what the behavioural expectations are. Establish a feedback mechanism for the first 60 days of operation.

After 60–90 days of operation, measure: pod and collaboration space utilisation rates (booking data and observation); employee survey re-run comparing results against the Phase 1 baseline; acoustic re-measurement at the same five floor points; and any changes in meeting room booking patterns indicating whether the zone mix is appropriately calibrated.

Adjust zone ratios and pod placement based on utilisation data. ABW is not a one-time design decision — it is an ongoing optimisation of the relationship between workspace configuration and organisational work patterns.

In theory, the focus and call zone requirements of ABW could be met by traditional enclosed office rooms or partitioned booths. In practice, for most organisations, soundproof office pods are the preferred solution for three structural reasons:

Speed and reversibility. ABW implementation timelines are compressed compared to renovation projects. Pods deploy in days; permanent construction takes months. And ABW implementations frequently require adjustment in the first 6–12 months as actual utilisation patterns emerge and zone ratios need recalibration. Pods can be repositioned; construction cannot.

Certified, standardised acoustic performance. A partitioned room’s acoustic performance depends on construction quality, junction details, and materials — and is rarely independently tested. HIGHKA pods deliver consistent, independently certified acoustic performance (ISO 23351-1 Class A) regardless of installation location, providing a reliable acoustic standard across all focus and call zone spaces.

Technology integration without construction. HIGHKA pods’ integrated technology platform — microwave radar sensing, PLC control, active ventilation, and stepless Osram LED lighting — provides a self-contained, fully functional workspace without requiring additional electrical installation, HVAC adaptation, or network infrastructure in each location. The pod plugs in; the workspace is ready.

Open offices do not provide sufficient acoustic, visual, and psychological privacy for typical office work. This is not an opinion. It is the finding of decades of peer-reviewed research across tens of thousands of workers.

Activity-based working does not reject the open office’s collaboration goal. It fulfils it — by creating a dedicated collaboration environment, freed from the acoustic contamination that the open-plan office imposed on all work activities, and pairing it with dedicated focus environments that give individual cognitive work the acoustic conditions it requires.

The five-zone ABW model — focus enclosure, call space, small group collaboration, open active zone, formal meeting — is the architecture of a workspace that can deliver both collaboration and concentration, because it stops asking a single spatial environment to deliver both simultaneously.

Office concepts that meet the needs of employees will avoid the productivity tax of malfunctioning modern office concepts. Soundproof pods are the acoustic infrastructure that makes the focus and call zones of an ABW environment function at the performance standard that justifies the transition from open-plan.

HIGHKA smart soundproof office pods provide the acoustic enclosure standard that ABW focus and call zones require: 35 dB noise reduction certified to ISO 23351-1 Class A; microwave radar breathing sensor (0.1s response, −30°C to 60°C); dual-channel active ventilation with 30-minute idle refresh cycle and post-use odour clearance; 0–1,800 lm stepless anti-glare Osram LED (3,000K–6,500K, CRI 90, UGR <20); industrial-grade PLC control; 95% recyclable EU E1-compliant materials. Five model sizes (S / M / SL / L / XL) covering 1 to 6+ users. 8 exterior colour options. CE, UL, ISO, SGS certified. Deployed in 20+ countries. 8–12 year design lifespan. 2–4 hours assembly. No permits.

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