22 types of flexible workspaces that benefit everyone

The types of flexible workspaces available in today’s office environment are vast, as companies look to a variety of space types to better support everyone on the team.

In other words: goodbye, cookie-cutter cubicles, and hello, flexible workspaces that are tailor-made for the people who use them. 

In this article, we explore 22 types of flexible workspaces that companies can provide to help improve workflows and meet different workstyles in the office. 

What is a flexible workspace? 

A flexible workspace is any work environment designed to adapt to the evolving needs and diverse work styles of individuals and teams. Unlike traditional, static offices, flexible workspaces prioritize adaptability, offering a variety of settings and arrangements that empower employees to choose where and how they work best.

This can range from unassigned desks and shared communal areas to specialized quiet zones and collaborative hubs. This concept has gained immense traction, particularly post-pandemic, as organizations seek to accommodate hybrid work models and create dynamic, engaging environments that support both in-office and remote employees, ensuring productivity and well-being.

Why are flexible workspaces popular?

The significant rise in popularity of flexible workspaces reflects a fundamental shift in how businesses and individuals approach work in the modern era. Driven by a desire for greater adaptability, cost-efficiency, and employee choice, these spaces offer compelling advantages over traditional office setups.

• Adaptability and scalability: Flexible workspaces allow companies to easily scale their footprint up or down based on evolving team sizes, project needs, or economic shifts, avoiding the rigidity of long-term leases.
• Cost efficiency: They reduce overhead expenses associated with traditional offices, such as utilities, maintenance, and furniture procurement, allowing businesses to pay only for the space they actively use.
• Employee choice and well-being: Offering a variety of work settings allows employees to choose the environment best suited for their tasks, fostering autonomy, boosting morale, and enhancing overall job satisfaction.
• Premium amenities and infrastructure: Users gain access to high-speed internet, professional meeting rooms, communal areas, and other essential office services without the burden of managing them directly.
• Hybrid and remote models: Flexible workspaces provide essential hubs for distributed teams, offering professional environments for remote employees to connect, collaborate, or simply work outside their home office.

What are the different types of flexible workspaces? 

Different work areas can accommodate different tasks and working styles. 

Most companies—from startups to Fortune 100—require some combination of the following 22 types of workspaces. 

1. Open spaces

Modern open spaces are a hallmark of flexible workplace design, moving beyond traditional cubicle farms to create dynamic, communal work environments. These areas, characterized by their lack of fixed walls between workstations, are specifically designed to foster spontaneous collaboration, enhance communication, and increase transparency among teams.

In a flexible setup, open spaces support a variety of work styles, from informal team meetings and quick chats to individual focused work with the use of headphones.

2. Hot Desking and Office Hoteling

As companies increasingly embrace flexible seating strategies post-pandemic, hot desking and office hoteling have become central to modern flexible workspaces. These approaches move beyond permanently assigned desks, allowing employees to share a rotating amount of workstations.

Hot desking means employees choose an available desk each time they come into the office, offering daily flexibility.

Office hoteling often involves booking a desk or private office in advance, providing a guaranteed spot for planned in-office days.

Both workplace strategies support hybrid environemnts, as not every worker needs a dedicated desk full-time. They optimize space utilization, significantly reduce real estate costs, and empower employees to select a workspace that best suits their needs for a given day. Typically, these shared desks are kept clean and clutter-free, often supported by policies that require employees to leave the workstation as they found it.

3. Assigned workspaces

While the modern workplace increasingly embraces shared and unassigned seating, assigned workspaces continue to play a crucial role within many flexible office strategies. These are dedicated desks or offices allocated to one team member, offering a sense of stability, personalization, and a consistent environment.

For roles requiring specialized equipment, high levels of privacy, or long-term focused work, an assigned space can be essential for productivity.  

4. Neighborhoods

One of the most popular and exciting work environment types emerging today is office neighborhoods. These are areas of the office with shared desks with a catch: only certain team members can book them. Neighborhood layouts are usually shared by a certain team or department, or by people working on the same project or type of task. 

As such, when considering types of workspaces, office neighborhoods can solve one of the biggest hybrid working challenges we’re seeing today.

When configured with the right neighborhood software and tools that simplify connecting with employees, working neighborhoods are a space type that can dramatically improve the workday. 

5. Soft seating

Adding in a little comfort can also dramatically improve the workday. So don’t save your comfiest couch—or your only couch, for that matter—for the lobby. 

‘Soft seating’ is basically comfy seating (like couches and armchairs) that many companies are now incorporating into the workplace in an effort to improve workplace wellbeing. It’s just nicer to have a place to relax when you need it. Or a place to take your laptop when you’ve been sitting at your desk too long. These types of workspaces are the kinds of small touches that can help with talent retention and attraction, by making the office a much more welcoming place to be.  

6. Private offices  

Although many business leaders are ‘walking the walk’ when it comes to shared spaces in the office, many still require a private office space. They’re also a necessity for places like law offices, where people need to have small, confidential meetings. So especially at a company headquarters, expect to see some amount of private offices. 

Note that, as we’ll cover below, private offices can be assigned, or they can be made available to everyone through desk or room booking software. 

7. Meeting spaces

There’s a wide variety of meeting space types that offices can choose from. Meeting spaces can be formal or informal, big or small, built for just a handful of people or for dozens of team members at once. 

Specific examples will vary based on needs, as will the meeting room design. 

8. Conference room workspaces

Similarly, conference rooms can be formal or informal. When considering types of workspaces, we don’t always consider the almighty conferences room. However, it too is a space type that people can use for working meetings or collaboration. Although we tend to think of these as the traditional long table with high back chairs, many companies are using new design strategies to create different types of collaborative workspaces and conference rooms.

See how OfficeSpace’s room booking software makes reserving meeting rooms simple through an intuitive mobile app.

9. Huddle rooms

Speaking of alternatives to conference rooms, the humble huddle room is quickly becoming a go-to in hybrid office design. 

Huddle rooms are small meeting space types, and companies typically design them for no more than 6 people. They’re great for quick brainstorming sessions, informal meetings, stand-up meetings, and hybrid meetings. 

Check out these tips for improving team collaboration in huddle rooms!

10. Breakout spaces

Huddle rooms are just one type of breakout space, which is essentially any informal, usually smaller space in the office meant for spontaneous collaboration and quick chats. 

These types of workspaces also allow for casual socialization (critically important since having a friend at work creates more engagement and higher work performance, even leading to more engaged customers and higher profits). 

Ultimately, if a breakout space is free, anyone can jump in for any reason that pops up. 

11. War rooms

War rooms are another new type of team workspace that’s becoming more and more popular. These are small spaces specifically designed for strategizing and solving problems, usually for leadership and team managers. 

While, again, layout and design will vary, in general, war rooms need to be equipped with whiteboards, computers, and enough desk space to get work done. 

12. Phone booths

There are many benefits to an open office, but many drawbacks, too. 

Specifically, if your office is open (which is quite likely, given that 80% of American offices use this layout), then you might struggle with things like phone calls, both personal and professional.  Especially if you’re not in a cubicle, you’re not going to want to disturb the people around you. 

This is where phone booths really shine, creating small but private one-person types of workspaces where you can chat ‘til your heart’s content (or you’ve closed the deal you’ve been working so hard on). 

13. Wellness room

Wellness rooms are another easily customizable space that can look different from office to office. 

These are meant to be calming spaces, where employees can retreat and engage in a little self-care as they need. Part of efforts to promote health and wellness, they’ll usually include ergonomic seating, perhaps some meditation cushions, as well as plants and the option to play soothing music. 

These types of workspaces can also be used as pumping rooms for nursing mothers (they may also be equipped with refrigerators for this purpose as well). 

14. Quiet spaces

Similarly, companies without the space to invest in a complete wellness room may instead create smaller types of quiet workspaces (sometimes called ‘nooks’) to offer employees a space to get away and get some peace and quiet when they need it.

15. Nap pods

And just like the name suggests, companies can take these health and wellness efforts to a whole new level by creating on-demand spaces for naps. 

16. Fun zones

The most successful workplace teams are those that are able to let off some steam here and there. With this idea in mind, fun zones are a new type of workspace idea that make the office a lot more fun—remembering that even when employees are letting off steam, they’re still engaging and building relationships with their colleagues. 

Like the name suggests, these are public spaces with a fun twist. 

Also called game rooms, these make great flex room ideas (i.e.: they’re a great way to optimize unused spaces in the office).  

Companies can bring in board games and video games, or foosball, ping pong, or pool tables to help employees incorporate a bit of fun into their day. If you’re unsure what your employees might like to see, ask them. No doubt they’ve got some great ideas for livening the play up. 

17. Kitchens and break rooms

Likewise, relationship building also happens over a cup of coffee or during your lunch break. 

In this sense, the kitchen, kitchenette, or break room can also be seen as types of collaboration spaces that benefit the workspace in a variety of ways. Of course they should always be clean and inviting. And no one ever got mad at a stocked pantry. 

18. Outdoor spaces

Being outside in the ‘real world’ can have a wonderful impact on our mood and mental health. 

Plus, thanks to the pandemic, people may feel more comfortable coming into the office and collaborating if they’re able to be outside for much of the day. 

As such, many companies are creating outdoor terraces and other types of outdoor workspaces where employees can work and get a little fresh air at the same time. 

19. Specialized spaces

Within a comprehensive flexible workspace, specialized spaces are purpose-built environments designed to support specific, often niche, activities that don’t fit into typical open areas or standard meeting rooms.

These areas are crucial for maximizing productivity and creativity by providing the exact infrastructure or ambiance required for particular tasks. This could be high-tech labs for product development, dedicated media rooms for content creation and podcasting, quiet coding nooks, or secure project rooms for confidential work.

20. Home office

Emerging as a unique facet of the flexible workspace landscape, coliving spaces represent a residential model that thoughtfully integrates shared living arrangements with dedicated work environments and community amenities. These spaces are gaining popularity among remote workers, freelancers, and digital nomads seeking a blend of convenience, professional infrastructure, and built-in social connection.

21. Coworking spaces

To cut back on corporate real estate costs, some companies and a great deal of freelancers are turning to coworking spaces. These space types are provided as a business service, where you pay to use desks in a shared office. Coworking space providers work to create inviting, amenable spaces that provide all the perks of office working, in a very different building type. . 

22. Virtual office

Finally, work today takes place both in and out of the office. 

Companies therefore need to consider whether they have a ‘virtual office’ that can support their remote and hybrid workers. This means creating a digital workspace, so that everyone can sign in and have the same tools and work experience, wherever they are. 

What are the different types of offices?

Beyond the specific configurations within a workspace, offices themselves can be broadly categorized by their operational model and purpose. Understanding these overarching types helps organizations choose the fundamental structure that best supports their business goals, team dynamics, and desired level of flexibility.

• Traditional/Conventional Offices: These are typically long-term leased or owned spaces where a company has exclusive use of the entire floor or building. They often feature assigned desks, private offices, and fixed layouts designed for a consistent in-office presence.
• Flexible Offices (including Coworking Spaces): These models emphasize adaptability, offering shared or on-demand workspaces, varied seating arrangements, and flexible membership terms. Coworking spaces, for example, are a popular type of flexible office where individuals from different companies share communal work environments.
• Hybrid Offices: This model blends traditional office space with remote work, allowing employees to split their time between working in a physical office and working from home or other remote locations. The office becomes a hub for collaboration and connection, rather than a daily requirement.
• Satellite Offices: Smaller branch offices located away from a company’s main headquarters, often serving specific regional markets or providing a closer option for employees living far from the primary office.
• Virtual Offices: For businesses that operate without a fixed physical presence, a virtual office provides services like a mailing address, phone answering, and sometimes access to meeting rooms on an as-needed basis, but without dedicated workspace.

How to choose the right type of flexible workspace

With so many types of fleixble workspaces to choose from, picking the ideal one can be a big challenge for workplace leaders. Thankfully, they should have two tools at their disposal to help them make any changes to their existing space. 

First, good workplace reports and analytics can provide metrics around how people are currently using a space (and therefore what types of spaces workers need most). Second, leaders can solicit employee feedback, to see what types of space they think will be most beneficial. 

“Let’s look at how people are coming back and how that’s working,” says workplace strategist Angie Earlywine, Senior Director in the Total Workplace division of Global Occupier Services at Cushman & Wakefield. “Let’s get feedback from the users of the space. Whether it’s from low-tech comment boxes in the café, or whether it’s pulse surveys taken on a monthly basis, that’s all forming a story that can then drive decisions around the demand for real estate.”  

What is an ideal workspace? 

There’s no single space that will work for every company, and no template that every company can follow. Each FM will have to work within unique constraints and specifications to create an entire office ecosystem that supports everyone who uses it. 

An ideal workspace is ultimately one that is fit for purpose—i.e.: it’s catered specifically around the people who use it. 

OfficeSpace helps optimize a wide variety of types of workspaces. Reach out for a free demo. 

Photos: Anchiy, Hispanolistic, hxyume, Kobus Louw, hxyume, Edwin Tan