Opportunities and challenges of workplace concept creation in Finnish government agencies

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to study the opportunities and challenges of the government workplace concepting process. Several Finnish government administrations have created nationwide workplace concepts for their network of agencies. These concepts give guidelines for designing workplaces for modern knowledge workers as well as service channels for the customers.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper discusses five Finnish government workplace concepts that include guidelines and recommendations for workplace design. The five workplace concept manuals were studied using content analysis. Additionally, seven interviews were conducted with participants involved in the concepting process.

Findings – The opportunities and challenges of the governmental workplace concepting process were studied using a six-step process framework. Each step has its own unique opportunities and challenges, which affect the outcome and the progress in implementing the concepts. Studying the opportunities and challenges helps to improve the concepting process and thus improve the potential for effectively implementing the concepts.

Practical implications – Creating office concepts in the public sector is at an immature phase both in Finland and in other countries. This paper helps take steps towards creating public offices that are cost efficient and at the same time support modern work activities. This allows governmental actors to rationalise and make the best possible use of their extensive stock of real estate.

Originality/value – Public offices have been little studied and office work in this context is also a less studied topic. The findings of this paper offer a novel way to look at government office concepts.