Three years after the biggest upheaval in office work since the birth of the commercial Internet, many CEOs and their leadership teams are still at a loss when it comes to how to motivate and retain their employees.
Hybrid working models are increasingly common, at least for office jobs, with working hours of three to four days at home and one to two days from home becoming the norm. But norms are not best practices, and despite some large-scale layoffs that give the impression that workers now have more power in the workplace again, recruiting and retaining good employees remains a priority for most companies.
“We’re now seeing leading organizations slowly realizing, ‘Okay, we’ve got them back,'” says Ron Martere, vice president of business at office furniture maker Steelcase. “That was actually the easy part, right? We told them to come back. Now we need to make sure that experience is good, and it needs to support hybrid working.”
To get the big picture, I reached out again to Martere and Allan Smith, the company’s chief revenue officer, to get their take on how people work today. Steelcase regularly surveys more than 57,000 workers around the world to understand trends in workplace sentiment.
So what does Steelcase’s latest research and work with clients say about the state of the office in 2023? What has changed, what is changing? And what can you do now to stay ahead of your competitors in a hybrid world? Some takeaways from the conversation:
How we work today
What is the general situation of office work after the pandemic? According to Steelcase’s survey data, there are big differences across countries and cultures, ranging from China, where workers are back in the office four to five days a week, “at a level of about 95,” to Canada, where workers are in the office on average three days a week, “and that’s about 45 percent of the time.”
In the U.S., cities in the South — particularly Texas and Florida — are seeing far higher office yields than cities in the North like Chicago and New York. “There’s more fear,” Smith says. “They tend to wear masks more often. But I think that’s also directly related to the culture and government mandates and requirements for work and the workplace. So I think that’s a little bit of a fallout from that.”
More office = more connection
Steelcase’s survey work also shows that while flexibility at work is important, many workers – especially younger workers – are really enjoying being back in the office in person. This is also true for most baby boomers, who have been in the habit of working in the office for decades.
As with previous surveys, the holdouts are, as you would expect, workers with greater family responsibilities and are the most enthusiastic about working from home.
But it’s notable, and perhaps not surprising: Those who are in the office feel much more a part of the company than those who aren’t. “We asked employees directly: Do you feel connected to your company and its mission? And we see a clear difference,” says Smith. “People who aren’t in the office feel less connected to the leaders, they feel less connected to the mission, and they feel less connected to how they can specifically contribute to the growth of the company. There’s a connection between space and social contact. Work is inherently a social experience.”
You want a little privacy
But when they return to the office, according to Steelcase’s research, employees now want more privacy than they did before the pandemic – acoustic privacy, territorial privacy, psychological privacy. And if you still have the elbow-to-elbow trading desk-style seating that was popular in Silicon Valley before the pandemic, get rid of it. Your employees hate it.
“People want as much privacy in the office as they have at home,” says Smith. “That can be full-height architectural walls. It can be little compartments or places where people can retreat without leaving. They’re also looking for collaboration spaces that are specifically designed for that… those are the things that keep people coming back.”
You don’t want friction
At the heart of any good hybrid solution, of course, is working technology. Technology friction is a big — and perhaps underestimated — bugbear for hybrid workers. Martere and Smith say that in recent years, employees’ patience has worn thin with the old “can you hear me?” days of annoying office Wi-Fi and tangled conference room cables. They just want things to work. Device makers like Logitech and Microsoft have gotten the message and are focused on improving the user experience in the office, they say.
But to really succeed with office workers, you need to think beyond laptops, batteries and connectivity. “Where does an employee’s day start and how can you eliminate friction once they walk into the office?” asks Smith. “Is it easy to find an available seat? Can I find the colleagues I’m working with? Is the technology easy to use? Wherever we can, wherever space or furniture or what we provide can help, we try to make it easier for employees to start their day. And I think that ultimately makes them happier with the work, the space, their employer and ultimately their interactions.”
You want to feel at home
But not getting annoyed is just one prerequisite for winning back employees – especially young workers. If they make the effort to put on proper trousers and come to the office, they want it to be a big improvement on what they experience at home. They want to meet with colleagues and share experiences that are part social, part business – and a welcome alternative to talking to each other through screens.
In collaboration with renowned NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg, author of Places for people, Steelcase found that companies need to create a “bond” in the office in every way possible – the intangible element that makes employees want to stay and not run away. It’s not just about a foosball table and a free lunch – it’s about creating a popular neighborhood with different ways for employees to meet. An environment with a mix of comfortable spaces rather than rigid conference rooms, for example.
“We want to linger here a little because it’s a pleasant, inviting place,” says Martere. “I think that’s the trend, so to speak, that we certainly support, but we also see that it works.”
Most importantly, focus on the overall value proposition for employees
None of this is really a big challenge for companies, say Smith and Martere. But it does require a little more focus than many companies have shown in the past. Their advice: Don’t just think about office furniture or layouts. Think about how you build the entire work experience and make it appealing to your employees.
“Approach the employee value proposition problem with intention,” Smith says. “Think of the people, the process, the technology, the space as a holistic group of elements that really need to be addressed. It’s not just one thing, it’s multi-faceted. And all of those things come together in a very intentional way that directly relates to your business purpose or the outcome you want to achieve in the business. That’s the opportunity I think now for CHROs, CEOs and CFOs. It’s really an opportunity as part of their employee value proposition to bring people back, engage them, engage them and re-engage them in the success of the company.”
Martere puts it this way: “You can’t prescribe stickiness.”
