There is a scarcity of knowledge regarding the potential benefits of human–nature contact within the context of working life. Even more limited is the research that focuses on working outdoors and the setting in which it takes place. This study aimed to obtain insight into key aspects of the physical environment relevant for the experienced benefits and challenges of workers exploring office work outdoors. We conducted interviews with key informants as well as photo registration and mapping of the different green spaces in the environments of six small or medium-sized workplaces. The information gathered was used as background knowledge for exploratory qualitative interviews, which were conducted while walking in natural settings chosen by the interviewees. With a landscape architectural perspective and an inductive approach, we explored employees’ experiences of bringing office work outdoors. The following themes emerged: ‘Simplicity,’ ‘Safeness’, ‘Comfort’, and ‘Contact with Nature’ were experienced as key aspects in relation to the physical environment, whereas ‘Sociality’, ‘Well-being’, and ‘Functioning’ stood out as the main benefits and, ‘Digital dependency’ and ‘Illegitimacy’ as challenges to overcome. Based on the identification of potential benefits and their prerequisites, we propose implications for practice and research that can be useful when focusing on bringing office work outdoors.

The physical boundaries of office work have become increasingly flexible. Work is conducted at multiple locations outside the office, such as at clients’ premises, at home, in cafés, or when traveling. However, the boundary between indoor and outdoor environment seems to be strong and normative regarding how office work is performed. The aim of this study was to explore how office work may be conducted outdoors, understanding how it is being experienced by office employees and identifying its contextual preconditions. Based on a two-year interactive research project, the study was conducted together with a Swedish municipality. Fifty-eight participants engaged in the collaborative learning process, including 40 half-day workshops and reflective group discussions, co-interviews, and participants’ independent experimentation of bringing work activities outdoors. Data was collected via interviews, group discussions and a custom-made mobile application. The results showed that a wide range of work activities could be done outdoors, both individually and in collaboration with others. Outdoor work activities were associated with many positive experiences by contributing to a sense of well-being, recovery, autonomy, enhanced cognition, better communication, and social relations, but also with feelings of guilt and illegitimacy. Conditions of importance for outdoor office work to happen and function well were found in the physical environment, where proximity to urban greenspaces stood out as important, but also in the sociocultural and organizational domains. Of crucial importance was managers’ attitudes, as well as the overall organizational culture on this idea of bringing office work outdoors. To conclude, if working life is to benefit from outdoor office work, leaders, urban planners and policymakers need to collaborate and show the way out.

White-collar workers around the world are reconfiguring their ways of working. Some have found their way out, performing office work outdoors, through walk-and-talks, outdoor meetings, or reading sessions. Working outdoors has proved both invigorating and challenging. This qualitative interview study aims to develop a conceptual framework concerning the implications of white-collar workers incorporating the outdoors into their everyday work life. Applying a constructivist grounded theory approach, 27 interviews with a total of 15 participants were systematically analyzed. Findings evolved around the following categories: practicing outdoor office work, challenging the taken-for-granted, enjoying freedom and disconnection, feeling connected and interdependent, promoting health and well-being, enhancing performance, and finally adding a dimension to work. These categories were worked into a conceptual model, building on the dynamic relationship between the practice of working outdoors on one hand, and how this challenges the system in which office work traditionally takes place on the other. Interviews reflected the profound learning process of the employees. Drawing on the concepts of free space and resonance, we demonstrate how performing office work outdoors may unlock a transformative potential by opening up connectedness and interdependence and contribute to a sustainable work life as well as overall sustainable development.

Background/Objectives: Outdoor office work (OOW) has been shown to promote health and well-being and to reduce stress. However, few empirical studies have examined research-based, simple approaches to implementing OOW. In preparation for a larger study, we conducted a feasibility study focusing on limited efficacy testing of potentially relevant outcomes for future OOW research. Methods: The simple Pop Out OOW programme consists of three workshops and access to online tutorials designed to support employees in transitioning relevant everyday office tasks outdoors. Before and after a 12-week intervention, employees from five small- and medium-sized Danish companies (N = 70) reported their weekly number of days including OOW, connectedness to nature (CNS and INS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and well-being (WHO-5) scores. Results: At baseline, higher CNS scores were associated with a greater number of days including OOW per week (r = 0.25, p = 0.020). Following the intervention, participants reported a significant increase in the number of days per week with OOW (p < 0.01, d = 0.65). CNS scores also increased significantly (p = 0.019, d = 0.32). No significant changes were observed in stress or well-being scores across the entire sample. However, participants with PSS scores exceeding a national Danish criterion for high stress (n = 11) exhibited a significant and substantial reduction in perceived stress (p < 0.01, d = 1.00). Conclusions: Days including OOW, along with PSS and CNS scores, may serve as relevant outcome measures in future studies evaluating interventions aimed at promoting OOW. These outcomes should be assessed in larger and more diverse and controlled samples to establish generalisability.