Unhappiness with office workspace is the driving force behind employee preferences for hybrid working. However, employees often fail to give voice to their unhappiness or managers choose not to listen.
The widespread experiment in remote work forced on society by the pandemic proved that employees are not less productive working from home and that companies can achieve the same results without in-person meetings, exchanges between management and employees, or the oft-cited “watercooler” discussions.
This revelation that the accepted assumptions about the efficiency and effectiveness benefits of office work were flawed came despite the steady evolution of the office environment from traditional offices to more innovative arrangements, such as open-plan workplace designs and even hot-desking (the practice of not assigning specific desks to individuals). These innovations were supposed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of office work.
One post-pandemic study reveals that the workspace in offices is, in fact, a major reason pushing employees to prefer working from home. The study was based on a series of 19 focus groups with 165 staff members of an education organization, including professional services staff and academics, followed by surveys sent to the education organization’s entire workforce of 5600 employees.
Participants in the focus groups were asked about the impact of working from home on their home lives (e.g., available working space, relationships with family members) and professional lives (e.g., productivity, relationships with colleagues). They were also asked about how personal circumstances and job demands led them to their preferred work arrangements (home, office, or hybrid).
The researchers organized the responses from focus group participants into four categories of push or pull factors. For example, participants who wanted to work at home may have been pulled toward a home office preference by the opportunity to have more space or pushed away from a work office preference by constant interruptions from colleagues. Likewise, participants who preferred working in an office may have been pulled toward an office preference by a factor such as the opportunity to work closely with mentors; or they may have been influenced by push-away-from-home factors such as audio-visual distractions that reduced productivity. The different factor categories require different responses from management. For example, management might focus first on push-away-from-work factors, which reflect serious, ongoing issues with the workspace that the organization has created.
The survey results corroborated the reasoning behind focus group preferences for working at home. For example, respondents connected factors such as less noise, better lighting, focus better, and more space to work in home offices, while connecting factors such as worse work-life balance, better teamwork, and better social interactions with colleagues with working in an on-site office.
In general, respondents believed that working from home improved their physical working conditions. However, these attitudes toward working conditions varied among the different kinds of office spaces. Those working in single occupancy offices were much more inclined to want to work in the office than those working in open-plan or hot-desking set-ups. Those lucky enough to have their own offices were more likely to link factors such as more workspace, can focus better, and better lighting to on-site offices than home offices.
Given the mix of advantages and disadvantages to working from home or the office, the most preferred arrangement, according to the research, was a hybrid arrangement. Only 7% of respondents said they wanted to work full-time in the office. About half of the respondents wanted to work 2 or 3 days at home, while 24% wanted to work full-time at home (although a majority of those were willing to work in the office when required).
Unhappiness with the workspace is a major driver of employee discontent with on-site work. This unhappiness, however, may not be apparent to managers because many employee attitudes are “latent” which means they may be hidden but that does not mean that they are not influential. For example, managers may only learn about employee discontent with the company’s workspace when a top employee leaves for a job that offers remote work.
In the post-pandemic era, employees a great many of whom experienced remote work for the first time during the pandemic are more willing to express their preferences for home-office or hybrid arrangements and expect a response from their managers. Negative attitudes about open-space, hot desking or other newer workspace arrangements are often still hidden, however.
Managers must therefore not only listen to their employees when they speak up, but also encourage employees voice the opinions they may be keeping to themselves.
Managers should also pay more attention to academic research, which is often a bellwether for employee attitudes. Workspace research had already revealed general employee dislike of fashionable workspace innovations, but this research was unread by company leaders.
Lila Skountridaki’s profile at the University of Edinburgh Business School
https://www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/staff/kalliopi-skountridaki
https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/profile/dr-w-victoria-lee
Lilinaz Rouhani’s profile at LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lilinaz-rouhani-2a71a4105/?originalSubdomain=uk
Missing Voices: Office Space Discontent as a Driving Force in Employee Hybrid Work Preferences. Lila Skountridaki, W. Victoria Lee, Lilinaz Rouhani. Industrial Relations Journal (January 2024).
Ideas for Leaders is a free-to-access site. If you enjoy our content and find it valuable, please consider subscribing to our Developing Leaders Quarterly publication, this presents academic, business and consultant perspectives on leadership issues in a beautifully produced, small volume delivered to your desk four times a year.
For the less than the price of a coffee a week you can read over 650 summaries of research that cost universities over $1 billion to produce.
Use our Ideas to:
Speak to us on how else you can leverage this content to benefit your organization. info@ideasforleaders.com
