A recent international workplace comparison survey conducted by the Gensler Research Institute has shed light on a crucial divide. It found that while employees depend on the office for their productivity, the office itself is failing to adapt to their evolving expectations.
The current state of the workplace is falling short of meeting these needs. Over the past two decades, the workplace has undergone a steady transformation toward more diverse, dynamic, and open spaces.
Meeting needs
According to the report, 61% of employees from nine countries express the need for an office environment to maximize their productivity, yet they lack suitable spaces that cater to various work modes throughout the day.
These findings align with data revealing that only 38% of the offices where these employees work have been redesigned since the beginning of the pandemic. This statistic underscores the importance for employers to enhance their workplaces and accommodate the diverse work requirements of their employees, with the aim of enticing them back into the physical office.
As organizations worldwide navigate new employee expectations amidst the backdrop of “stagflation”—a condition marked by high inflation and low growth resulting from geopolitical tensions, uneven pandemic recovery, and bottlenecks in global supply chains—the imperative to create workplaces that optimize both performance and employee experience has reached unprecedented levels.
“The gap between current office utilization and employee need for the office is an opportunity to rethink the workplace,” said Janet Pogue McLaurin, Global Director Workplace Research, Principal, Gensler. “Providing a balanced array of work settings and amenities can not only empower employees to work better but create a better work experience.”
An unprecedented change
Employees’ relationship with the office has undergone unprecedented changes, reflecting shifting priorities in the modern work landscape.
On average, employees spend half of their typical work week at their company’s office, highlighting the continued relevance of the physical workspace.
Furthermore, employees globally dedicate 42% of their time to collaborative work, whether in virtual or in-person settings. Notably, the primary reason cited by the majority of office workers for coming into the office is to concentrate on their individual tasks, a sentiment shared across all countries except for Mexico and Germany. In these two nations, workers prioritize in-person meetings with their teams as the key driver for office attendance.
A significant gap
However, a significant gap exists between what employees state as their needs and their actual behavior. Despite asserting that they require office presence for 63% of a typical work week to optimize productivity, employees tend to spend only half of that time in the physical workplace.
The workplace consistently falls short in facilitating critical work activities such as individual work and virtual collaboration, revealing a dissonance between expectations and reality. Hybrid meetings, combining in-person and remote participation, constitute an average of 57% of office meetings, with workers in the UK reporting the highest percentage at 62%.
Recognizing the value of improved work environments, it becomes evident that investing in better workplaces yields substantial returns for individuals, teams, and businesses.
A positive impact
Across all global respondents, those working in effective and engaging office spaces report a positive impact on various aspects. Impressively, 94% of employees in high-performing workplaces affirm that working from the office enhances their individual productivity, in stark contrast to the mere 45% among those in low-performing workplaces.
Similarly, 92% of employees in high-performing workplaces credit the office with positively influencing their decision-making speed, whereas only 43% of individuals in low-performing workplaces share this sentiment.
These findings underscore the importance of addressing workplace deficiencies to unlock the full potential of employees and promote overall organizational success.
