Recent and current socio-cultural trends are significant factors impacting on how business is conduced and correspondingly, on how work environments are designed. New communication technology is helping to break physical boundaries and change the way and speed of conducting business. One of the main characteristics of these new workplaces is non-permanency wherein the individual employee has no dedicated personally assigned office, work station, or desk. In this non-territorial, nomadic situation, employees undertake their work tasks in a wide variety of work settings inside and outside the office building. Such environments are understood to be must suitable where there is the need for high interaction with others as well as a high level of concentrated, independent work. This thesis reports on a project designed to develop a deeper understanding of the relationships between people (P) and their built environment (E) in the context of everyday work practice in a nomadic and non-territorial work environment. To achieve this, the study focuses on the experiences of employees as they understand them in relation to their work and the designed/ physical work environment. In this sense, the study is qualitative and grounded in nature. It does not assume any previously established theory nor test any presenting hypothesis. Instead it interviews the participants about their situations at work in their workplace, interprets natural interaction and creates a foundation for the development of theory informing workplace design, particularly theory that recognises the human nature of work and the need, as highlighted by several seminal researchers, for a greater understanding of how people manage and adapt in dynamic work environments.

Some chapters have bibliographical references at the end of the chapter / Strategic recruitment and retention efforts improve the capacity of a research unit in delivering outputs such as collaborative research, increased grant funding and peer-reviewed journal articles (Chung, Clifton, Rowe, Finley, & Warnock, 2009). At the same time, knowledge of employees’ experiences can help organisations improve HRM strategies and practices. In this regard, the motivation driving this study was that exploring the recruitment and retention experiences of staff in a university research unit could reveal significant insights that could assist in refining the organisation’s HRM practices, thereby facilitating attraction and retention of valuable talent. This qualitative study was designed from an interpretive paradigm and a constructivist perspective in order to facilitate the exploration and understanding of employees’ subjective experiences. Findings indicate that professional development, organisational appeal and networking opportunities make this research unit an employer of choice. These factors, among others, are both attractors and incentives to remain with the organisation which significantly outweigh factors that discourage attraction and retention. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Some chapters have bibliographical references at the end of the chapter / Strategic recruitment and retention efforts improve the capacity of a research unit in delivering outputs such as collaborative research, increased grant funding and peer-reviewed journal articles (Chung, Clifton, Rowe, Finley, & Warnock, 2009). At the same time, knowledge of employees’ experiences can help organisations improve HRM strategies and practices. In this regard, the motivation driving this study was that exploring the recruitment and retention experiences of staff in a university research unit could reveal significant insights that could assist in refining the organisation’s HRM practices, thereby facilitating attraction and retention of valuable talent. This qualitative study was designed from an interpretive paradigm and a constructivist perspective in order to facilitate the exploration and understanding of employees’ subjective experiences. Findings indicate that professional development, organisational appeal and networking opportunities make this research unit an employer of choice. These factors, among others, are both attractors and incentives to remain with the organisation which significantly outweigh factors that discourage attraction and retention. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)