Changes in Work Behavior Patterns

Workers across the globe have evolved in their patterns of work, with increased flexibility emerging as a central theme. We highlight three forms of flexibility that workers have increasingly demanded: flexibility in location, schedule, and work design. We argue these capture the broad ways in which workers seek to structure and balance their work and nonwork lives, as well as their careers overall. We describe the evolution of each form of flexibility, review the benefits and challenges, and outline avenues for future research. Finally, we highlight a unique work arrangement, or setting, that infuses flexibility in unique ways – coworking spaces. We review what we know so far about coworking spaces, which have proliferated far faster than the scientific research that seeks to understand them. We conclude by outlining questions that may be good first priorities for emerging scholarly research in this area.