When work and workers are changing, the work environment needs to change as well.  But what are necessary and effective changes? Which areas of a work environment – physical and/or psychological – need to be included? And how should the change management processes for a work environment change look?

To shed light on these questions the work environment change project (“Work 2020”) of a Financial Services company has been accompanied and evaluated. A mixed methods approach combining short personal interviews, weekly surveys (“pulse checks”), each followed by a project team meeting to discuss and decide about adaptive measures, and a detailed final evaluation survey together with further interviews resulted in a very rich longitudinal data base of a work environment change.

Based on this study, insights are made and recommendations can be given regarding

• areas and aspects of an office work environment that are important to the office users in the context of financial services,
• the behavioral changes and the adaptations of the users within the first five months after the move into the new/redeveloped office space,
• the do’s and don’ts of the change management process in this setting,
• the impact of work environment changes and the change process on different performance dimensions.