That's what's happening at Capital One Financial Corp. in McLean, Va. Several thousand of the company's 21,000 employees work in flexible offices developed under its two-year-old Future of Work (FOW) program. The company refers to work space and workers with one of four categories: resident, anchor, mobile and executive.

Residents, some of whom have laptops so they can also work at home or from the road, work at assigned desks because that's what they prefer or that's more suitable to their roles.

Anchors, who tend to be administrative assistants, similarly have a dedicated work space, but it is larger than that of residents because the nature of their work requires it.

Mobile workers carry laptops and other mobile devices so they can work wherever they need to in various unassigned work areas, such as at traditional desks, quiet spaces where there are no phones, off-site locations or in-house cafeterias where they can brainstorm with other workers.

Executives sit at the "dining room table" -- a large, computer-equipped table out among the workers.