Bosses have tried everything to convince their employees that they are happier at the office than at home – from free lunches to subsidized commutes. When that didn’t work, they tried to put a stop to it.
Now angry employers want to know what motivates their employees.
Neil Murray, CEO of Work Dynamics at real estate services group Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), said companies are examining every corner of their employees’ mindsets to find the right formula to bring them back to the office.
Most bosses want to have their employees back in front of them, at least in a hybrid model, but are struggling with resistance from employees who are used to flexibility.
Murray’s department advises major companies on their real estate footprint, covering everything from the sustainability of a space to how employees interact with that space – the latter of which is becoming increasingly important for companies to consider before spending a fortune on prime office space.
Change space
He describes a new approach to designing these spaces as “a moment of reinvention of space” that emphasizes human behavior.
“Sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists. You get input and everyone has slightly different opinions,” Murray said Assets.
Murray says this mindset has changed dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic and companies now need to think about how their office space can benefit employees.
“You completely change that paradigm and think, ‘Why do I even need space when I can do my business virtually? What’s the purpose of this?’ And then you need input from different people to try to think psychologically about what makes people feel comfortable.”
The future of real estateA new report from JLL, released Thursday, examines corporate office space requirements after the AI revolution. Companies will likely focus more on the social impact of spaces, prioritizing “wellness, hospitality and entertainment,” the authors say.
However, this does not mean that the solution to the growing office job shortage lies in a series of attractive workplace extensions such as gyms and cinemas.
JLL’s Murray says his group has tested every possible amenity that could lure workers back to the office, including free lunches or coffee machines, but there is no silver bullet.
“The most attractive incentive to bring people back is other people,” he says.
Creating an office that brings them together is becoming a generational struggle, according to Murray.
The psychological differences between Gen Z workers and their older counterparts are proving to be one of the factors driving a reassessment of office space. Murray says studying at a distance university before graduating in a hybrid work environment has changed the needs of young workers compared to their predecessors.
“There are certainly some collective psychological differences in this generation in terms of expectations,” Murray said.
Office space
Beyond generational and incentive-based considerations, Murray says companies that use force to recruit employees are not very successful.
“For those who try to make regulations and require three days, we see pretty much the same number of participants as those who don’t enforce a regulation, and it levels off at just under three days a week.”
Murray says companies typically agree to a three-day hybrid model, adding that younger and older workers spend more time in the office than mid-career workers.
Speak with Assets In February, Murray’s colleague, EMEA CEO Sue Aspey Price, said that companies that asked their employees to return to the office four days a week did so in the expectation that they would only come back for three days.
Aspey Price explains that changes in office space requirements due to the COVID-19 pandemic have led to job cuts.
“If everyone followed the current guidelines, many businesses would not have nearly enough space,” she said.
“If all work crews came on these days, the likelihood of them having enough space would be almost zero.”
Murray believes offices will return to designated workspaces for employees as a countermeasure to widespread hot-desking, even if that means employees take turns sitting at their desks on a given day.
“When you consider that everyone is moving towards complete tasklessness, where is the space for oneself and where is one’s own personality?”
