Since the seismic shift from office to homeworking during the pandemic, we have all been trying to understand the benefits and challenges of each setting and find the right balance for all.
This is a complex issue, with a multitude of considerations, both from the perspective of the employer and the employee; navigating it means taking account of the demands of different jobs, different working behaviours, and the wide range of individual needs and preferences. Clearly there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but with so many factors to think about, even knowing where to start can be difficult.
So, we were very pleased to read an impressive research report, and subsequent extended editorial discussion, illuminating many of the key themes and thinking points connected to this conversation.
The Enticing Workplace: Attracting People Back to the Office By Nigel Oseland and Gary Raw In partnership with MillerKnoll, Workplace Trends and Audiem (see https://bit.ly/46q8Iyk ) explores what factors influence preferences around place of work. By extension, it also asks the question ‘how do you entice people to spend more time in the office without obliging them to do so?’
This report was then the touchstone for a discussion by an expert panel, which included the two authors, reported at length in an In Magazine supplement last month (July)(see https://bit.ly/3YleNdz ).
While we highly recommend you read both pieces yourself, we thought we would whet your appetite by sharing some of the insights here and in our next blog.
The Framework
The research sought to explore what might attract employees back to the office through understanding underlying workers’ concerns about doing so and investigating the employee benefits and advantages of working from home compared to the office.
Respondents were asked to rate whether they considered the better place to work was mostly their home or mostly the office, across 51 ‘influences’. That information was gathered alongside background details about their lives and working circumstances to contextualise their responses.
The ‘Influences’
The factors that impact preferences around places of work are clearly many and complex. But the report breaks them down into handy thematic groups: work activities, facilities and environmental conditions, personal benefits, sense of purpose, such as career, progress and connection.
Then, from the responses, the authors have drawn out eight key factors which impact work/home preferences: (1) Organisational belonging, (2) Work interactions, (3) Health and wellbeing, (4) Concentration, (5) Workstation control, (6) Environmental control, (7) Workload management and (8) Personal time
A whistle-stop summary
Preference between home and office depends on the type of work being undertaken. Generally, home was felt to better support focussed work (so for example, conducting confidential calls or meetings, doing work requiring concentration, and for feeling productive overall). The office, by contrast, was better for teamwork and development activities (such as meetings, collaboration, managing or mentoring a team, improving knowledge through interactions or eavesdropping and socialising with colleagues.)
A higher proportion of respondents reported they preferred being at home for the indoor environmental conditions - privacy and control over noise in particular.
The office also appeared to compete most poorly with working from home in the area of personal benefits – especially “personal pressures”, such as travel costs and time, work life balance, access to childcare, managing health conditions, and taking best advantage of weather conditions.
On the other hand, the office was regarded as better for reducing isolation and loneliness, and demarking boundaries between work and home life. Some also appreciated the consistent daily routine an office setting provides.
Other areas in which the office fares well include supporting a sense of purpose, supporting connection and reward, aligning with the company culture, and experiencing leadership and motivation.
When respondents were asked to choose three factors that most attracted them to the office and three that most discouraged them from returning, teamwork, socialising and connection were the most prominent reasons for favouring the office, while travel cost and time, work requiring concentration, and control over noise and distraction were the factors keeping them away.
Overall, according to this survey sample, approximately one-half of respondents considered their home better, one-third preferred the office, with the remainder indifferent.
In our next blog post we’ll explore some of the key thinking points and takeaways from this report and discussion article.
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