Employees Want Changes Before Returning to the Office in Wake of COVID-19
While employees expect offices to be flexible with working from home in the future, people do miss the collaboration and socialization from being in an office;
Employees are expecting some drastic changes before they return to the office, including more space for social distancing and stricter sick policies, according to a new Gensler survey.
While more employers expect better flexibility to work from home in the future, three-quarters of employees who took Gensler’s survey said they miss collaborating in person with colleagues after COVID-19 shuttered offices across the nation.
“When employees do come to the office, they expect it to be for collaboration and social connection,” according to the report. “Nearly all workers list people focused reasons as most important for coming into the workplace, with little variation across industries. Despite the rapid adoption of virtual collaboration technologies, people still clearly value face-to-face interactions over virtual ones, in many cases, and miss the company of their coworkers.”
The most important changes appear to be stricter policies about staying home when sick, and increased opportunities to work from home. More cleaning and efforts to bolster social distancing also rank high.
“Not only do workers want their employers to adopt social distancing practices, they are also open to adopting a shift schedule or a wider variety of working hours,” according to Gensler. “While workers expect less sharing of workstations, they feel less positively about reduced investment in shared amenities and are also wary of being discouraged from using public transit.”
Nearly 55% of those surveyed said it’s harder to collaborate when everyone is telecommuting, and 51% said it’s more difficult to keep up with what their colleagues are working on.
Gensler found Millennial and Gen Z employees were the least prepared to work from home even though they are often believed to be more technologically savvy.
“However, younger generations came into this experience having worked from home less often in the past and, overall, with less optimal work-from-home environments,” according to the survey. “Despite their technological preparedness for mobile work, younger workers report a far more challenging experience working from home than their older peers. They are less likely to feel accomplished at the end of a typical day.”