The State Of The Office

Seemingly every day there’s a new article about how employers are mandating that more employees return-to-office (RTO). Yet there seems to be just as many published about how employees are resisting, or just flat out refusing to heed those mandates. And now the battle between employers and employees has made it to the firing stage.

Why do employers want their employees back in the office so badly? Why do employees not want to go back just as strongly? Is the problem the office itself? And what can be done to fix it?

Office space utilization is at 40% globally (and less than 30% in the US) in the second quarter of 2024, according to XYSense, which is half to one third of pre-pandemic levels. While over 70% of companies have mandated some type of return-to-office, just as many employees believe that their company is requiring them to work from the office because of traditional work expectations.

While the vast majority of managers feel that their team is more productive when working remote or hybrid, most people believe their co-workers are unproductive when working from home. And although 77% of remote workers report higher productivity, even more business leaders are not confident that their employees are productive when they’re not in the office. Which is really the crux of the matter. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Most business have employed a 3 day in-office mandate, which has led to offices being 84% busier mid-week compared to Mondays and Fridays, with Tuesday being the most popular day to come to the office. All this has give rise to a new term, “coffee badge”. More than half of hybrid workers have said they show face in the office and then leave.

Which leaves us at the current state of the office, most people are not back in the office full time, and they may never return to five days a week. Employees feel like they’re not productive in the office, so do you even need an office?

Do I Need An Office?

With more and more statistics and surveys reporting that employees feel more productive when working remotely, the inclination may be to have a very limited office space or even none at all. But there are great reasons for your business to have an office and 94% of workers say they could be convinced to come back to the office.

The number one reason is collaboration. Indeed.com defines workplace collaboration as, “the process by which employees within a business work together to solve a problem or achieve a goal.” A survey from Zippia found that over half of workers rely on collaboration, with approximately 75% of employees highly valuing teamwork and collaborative efforts. Organizations that actively foster workplace collaboration have been associated with a 50% reduction in employee turnover rates. Furthermore, a significant majority of individuals in leadership roles attribute a lack of collaboration as the primary cause of workplace failures. In total, employees say they are more satisfied with their job when they collaborate at work.

One of the other primary incentives for working in a physical office is the opportunity to engage with colleagues. According to research by Microsoft, 84% of employees find motivation from socializing with co-workers and would be motivated to return to the office to reestablish strong team connections. Additionally, survey respondents expressed their willingness to return to the office more regularly, with most stating they would do so if their direct team members were present and if their work friends were also in attendance.

Additional reasons for being in a physical office include the ability for managers to provide more feedback and for more advancement opportunities. A majority of managers believe that their hybrid/remote working employees are missing out on impromptu or in-formal feedback. And 90% of CEOs say they’ll give raises and promotions to those that are in the office, reinforcing the idea that business leaders want to be able to see people being productive.

At the end of the day, workers are really wanting flexibility to collaborate in person when needed, yet also have uninterrupted time when they need to be productive on their own. So if workers are willing and possibly even wanting to come into the office, why are they not returning? Could the office itself be the problem?

The Problems With The Office

Did you know that the cubicle was created in 1967 because studies showed that a completely open office with no privacy actually reduced communication between employees? Open plan offices have actually been called the “dumbest management fad of all time,” and yet they still persist. Is it because they’re the most cost effective use of corporate real estate or is it that making workers more visible to each other should on its face generate more collaboration? Yet the opposite has been proven true. So why would someone want to leave, what in many cases may amount to a private office in their home, to try and work from a place that is full of distractions?

The biggest complaint of those that have returned to the office is that it can be difficult to find quiet places to work in the office. With there being even more calls taking place at desks, 61% of people claim loud colleagues as their biggest distraction. Work done by Sabine Kastner, a professor at Princeton who studies visual perception, attention, and awareness, shows that for many an open office can make it nearly impossible to concentrate as our brains are drawn to visual movement. So while you will see lots of headphones in the current open office, there’s no way for workers to easily block out visual distractions.

Since the main purpose of return-to-office mandates is to promote increased collaboration and the sharing of information, teams frequently schedule meetings for in-office days, which leads to a greater demand for meeting rooms and areas dedicated to collaboration.  In addition, 80% of employees encounter wasted time because of technical challenges during online meetings. With less than 10% of conference rooms globally even being equipped for web conferencing and 88% of meetings having at least one remote participant, it’s a wonder we even still call most of them “conference” rooms! According to one respondent to a survey by XY Sense, “I won’t force my team to come in if there is no place for us to get our work done.” Another respondent said, “even though our rate of occupancy is lower than before the pandemic, our meeting room demand is now higher than ever. The biggest complaint I get is that the mandate is supposed to encourage more collaboration, but on some days there is nowhere to collaborate!”

So is the office itself the main problem with convincing employees to return to the office? Why would an office worker choose to work in a place full of distractions that isn’t actually conducive to getting his or her work done and doesn’t have the actual space or tools needed to collaborate with colleagues? Can we create an office environment that solves these problems and increases productivity and efficiency?

The Modern Office

The major pain points in the current office are that workers don’t have a quiet place to work, don’t have enough places to collaborate, and therefore aren’t willing to go to an office to become less efficient at their jobs. Business leaders want to be able to see their employees being productive and want to foster more collaboration. So it’s time to rethink the office and create an environment that meets the needs of modern workers and businesses.

The office experience needs to be aligned to the purpose of work. People need to have a quiet place to be able to work uninterrupted and also have space to be able to collaborate. These are two different tasks and need separate spaces, trying to combine them does not work. Open collaboration spaces have been shown to be the least used areas of an office, and enclosed meeting rooms are now the most popular space type. In fact, 2-3 person meeting rooms are 92% utilized, over 40% more than any other sized conference room, owing partly to the fact that small groups work together more frequently, but these rooms are also often occupied by a single person simply trying to find a quieter place to work in the office.

With office real estate availability still being high, the time is ripe for companies to ditch the open office plan and add more small enclosed offices and small conference rooms. If the main reason for employees to even come to the office is to collaborate, the office needs to have more conference rooms than ever. Yet this doesn’t necessarily mean that the square footage dedicated to conference spaces needs to be dramatically increased. According to XYSense, 2-3 person meetings rooms are 92% utilized, 4-6 person 50% utilized, and 7-19 person rooms are 40% utilized. More smaller conference rooms are needed as the average meeting has only 3-4 attendees.

It is also now imperative that every meeting room have web conferencing capabilities as 88% of meetings having at least one remote participant. The amount of possible technology solutions for the conference room can be overwhelming. By far the largest web conferencing platforms are Microsoft Teams and Zoom and both have dedicated room solutions for their platforms, but even narrowing to a single platform leaves an abundance of options. 64% of employees feel that their company uses too many communication platforms and 83% of employees say good technology is important to them when working. Making sure that conference rooms are not only easy to use, but that the user experience is the same across different sizes of rooms is extremely important, as unproductive meetings in the US alone cause a total loss of $37 billion dollars every year, according to research by Zippia.

Creating the same experience can be challenging for larger rooms as a single camera to capture more than 6 people leaves those on the remote end feeling disconnected from the larger meeting happening in person. Frost & Sullivan refers to the new solution type for these rooms as “high-impact spaces” but the key goal to keep in mind is that any single participant who is talking should be shown at the same size as everyone else, regardless of whether they are remote or in-person. Microsoft has developed their Front Row experience and Zoom has Intelligent Director which can help provide participant equity, but rooms need to be specifically designed for these experiences.

If your workforce is not going to be in the office five days a week and different departments may have different schedules for office days, room and office scheduling panels are must-haves for any current office. There are many different options available for desks and conference rooms but make sure to choose ones with clear indicators, so others can tell if a room is reserved or available without having to interrupt a meeting as 62% of meetings are unscheduled.

If your workforce is not in the office on a regular basis, they may need help finding where to go. Digital signage can help fill that need. Whether in a lobby or throughout the office, digital signage can have many different uses and sometimes needs to be able to fulfill multiple needs at the same time. Determining what is trying to be achieved or communicated is the key goal. Is it to help with navigation, wow people, educate, entertain, advertise, or some combination thereof?

It is important not only to think about the office experience for your employees but also for visitors. What will their first impression be? How will they navigate your office and how will you maintain the security of your space at the same time? Combining access control, video security, and visitor management into one cohesive platform can dramatically increase the seamlessness of the experience for all, while simultaneously increasing security. A modern access control system that no longer requires key cards, which can be easily lost or duplicated, and a modern video security system with analytics, can provide valuable insight into not only where and when employees are coming and going, but also greater security by providing real time alerts when someone is not where they are supposed to be.

Combining your specific security data with information from an occupancy tracking system can help businesses make the best use of their office real estate. Being able to understand how an office is used with actual data is the best way to make strategic decisions not only about what and how many rooms types are needed, but also when an office is falling short of the needs of the employees.

The purpose of the office is to collaborate. Making sure your office has all of the right technology to foster that collaboration while navigating all of the different choices can be a difficult and time consuming process. Reckoner Consulting is here to be your expert in workplace technology. We can provide you any level of consultation your business may need to improve your office space. If there’s a way we can be of help, please contact us.