This study aimed to examine the relationship between flexible office environments (activity-based
work environment; ABWE) and work engagement and its potential mediating variables. We hypothesized
that more options of place to work inside one’s office would be positively correlated with workers’ work
engagement because it serves as a job resource for achieving work goals. Since psychological safety has
been suggested as a mediator of the relationship between work engagement and job characteristics that
allows workers to make important decisions on their own, we also hypothesized that psychological safety
can be a mediator of the correlation between ABWE and work engagement. We conducted a web-based
survey of 500 employees working for private companies in Japan. As predicted, people who work in
offices with more types of environments for flexible workstyles had higher work engagement. This effect
was partially mediated by perceived psychological safety. Although the causal relationship and detailed
psychological mechanism are not yet clear, the results indicate that preparing flexible work environments
may foster workers’ perceptions of psychological safety, which may lead to work engagement.