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Workplace Survey
An Inviting Office
November 10 ,2021
With COVID-19, remote work has taken root. When people can choose to work remotely, what kind of attributes would make an office attractive enough for workers to take the trouble to come into work? Let's take a look at what makes an office inviting.
The Places People Want to Go to in Order to Work
With COVID-19, working remotely from places other than the office, such as homes and coworking spaces, has become the norm, and workers are now free to choose where to work from. Given such a situation, how do workers perceive the “office”?
In order to find out whether workers preferred to continue working from the office in the future, we asked 3,000 workers about places they wanted to work from after COVID-19. The results showed that respondents chose the office, home, and coworking spaces, in descending order, as places they most wanted to work from following COVID-19 (Fig. 1). Even with the popularity of remote work, it seems that more than half of the workers want to work from the office.
But what motivates workers to come into the office, when they could choose either to work at home or remotely? Now that workers are actively choosing the places in which to work, it seems necessary to grasp what exactly workers expect from the office when they feel the desire to go in, and prepare the office environment and the facilities necessary to meet those expectations.
Reasons for Going into the Office, Other than for Work
From the survey results on the previous page, we have seen that more than half of the respondents wished to continue working from the office.
Now we will dig deeper and consider why an office is necessary. One of the more obvious reasons for people to gather in an office is to achieve efficiency, but there must be other reasons for people to go into the office.
So, in a survey conducted in August 2020, we asked people about the reasons they wanted to go into the office, apart from work itself. The results showed that around 60% of the respondents did so because they could meet colleagues they were friendly with (Fig. 2). Workers gather at the office to take advantage of worker welfare and training programs such as meals and special events, in addition to work itself. And we can see that the fact that there are people they want to meet in the office is a big reason for wanting to come in.
Now, on the next page, we will look at the specific reasons, namely, what kind of activities they engage in with colleagues at work makes them want to go into the office, regardless of whether such activities are directly related to work.
Why Workers Go Into the Office
What do workers expect from the office?
We listed 23 activities held in the office, and asked 515 office workers whether they wanted to go into the office for each activity. When factor analysis was performed based on the results, two factors, “activities related to consultation and collaboration,” and “activities related to personal use,” stood out as the reasons that So, in a survey conducted in August 2020, we asked people about the reasons they wanted to go into the office, apart from work itself. The results showed that around 60% of the respondents did so because they could meet colleagues they were friendly with (Fig. 2). Workers gather at the office to take advantage of worker welfare and training programs such as meals and special events, in addition led people to the office (Fig. 3).
The questions classified as “activities related to consultation and collaboration” were “meetings and consultations that require indepth discussion,” and “important meetings and consultations.” It seems that people want to go into the office when there is a need to observe facial expressions, such as when discussing complicated issues.
On the other hand, the questions classified as “activities related to personal use” featured “individual tasks” and “simple tasks.” We may conclude that this represents the desire to ensure time for oneself in the office.
Once again, we found that workers group the activities they carry out in their work in two ways: “consultation/collaboration,” which involves other people, and “personal use.”
How the Desire to Go Into Work Affects Behavior
Using the two groupings (factors) on the previous page, we will examine how the “desire to go into the office” affects workers’ mindsets and behaviors.
Prior research on the psychology and behavior of people in organizations has shown that there are a number of important characteristics associated with performance, initiative, and healthy organizational life.
In this analysis, we took up “work engagement*,” “attachment to the organization,” and “organizational identity” as the workers’ psychological characteristics as well as “selfperceived performance” and “supportive actions” as their behavioral characteristics, and examined how these characteristics correlate with the workers’ “desire to go into the office for activities related to consultation and collaboration” as well as their “desire to go into the office for activities related to personal use.”
*Source: Positive Mental Health in the Workplace, Akihito Shimazu, 2015
Benefits of Going into the Office
We found that the more people wanted to go into the office for activities related to consultation and collaboration, the higher their self-perceived performance, and the more they helped out their colleagues. On the other hand, we found that the more people wanted to come into the office for personal use, the higher their work engagement. Wanting to go into the office for personal use may lead to a heightened sense of fulfillment in one’s work (Fig. 5).
In addition, attachment to the organization is correlated both to consultation/collaboration and personal use, and organizational identity is correlated to individual use. This means that the psychological connection with the organization is strengthened, which may be considered as one of the functions that the office performs.
So what exactly does an office environment need in order to attract workers? We delved further into the factors that attract workers to the office.
Importance of Clarifying the Role of the Office
In recent years, people have increasingly looked to ABW* as a way to enable the adoption of flexible work styles. Assuming that "the more varied the spaces, the better equipped the ABW environment,” and investigating its correlation with the desire to go into the office, we found that a good ABW environment which fostered collaboration upped the motivation to work on-site, due to ease of consultation/collaboration.
On the other hand, we also found that an ABW environment well equipped with spaces for individual or multipurpose use encouraged people to work on-site in order to pursue activities related to personal use (Fig. 6). The same applies to an ABW environment conducive to personal and multipurpose activities and the desire to go into the office for purposes of consultation/collaboration. It may be a good idea to set up the office based on an understanding of what kind of environment workers want.
* ABW (Activity-Based Working): A work style in which people choose a place to work according to the nature and purpose of the task, be it on- or off-site.
Summary of What an Inviting Office Consists of
Even in the aftermath of COVID-19, the majority of workers still wish to continue working onsite.
There is some debate about whether people should continue to go into the office, given the availability of remote work, but we have found that the desire to go into the office has a beneficial effect on the mindset and behavior of workers. In particular, it seems to have a positive effect on organizational attachment.
However, creating an environment which is different from the one the workers desire is counterproductive in motivating workers to come into the office. We should draw up plans for the office by thinking about what that space should be for, combined with an image of the kind of organization one aims for.
This article was reprinted from the KNOWLEDGE WORK DESIGN REVIEW by Okamura.
Research: Mai Morita, Ayumi Mineno, Kouichi Ikeda（Okamura）
Edit: Ayano Yoshida
Illustration & Infographic: Shinji Hamana, Hana Fujii（Beach）
Illustration (Top Banner): Toshinori Yonemura
Production: Plus81 inc.
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