I had the pleasure of attending Woodhouse’s recent seminar on the ‘irresistible workplace’. There were plenty of takeaways, but one point particularly resonated with me: there is a big difference between getting people into an office and getting them to participate once they are there.

A lot of effort has gone into office attendance. Businesses set expectations, encourage people in and measure success through daily swipe-ins. But that only tells you who turned up. It doesn’t tell you whether there was any real benefit from them being there.

The competition is pretty strong. For many people, home is a good place to work. It is personal, comfortable and tailored to them. They can control where they sit, the noise around them and the temperature. There is also, rather importantly, no commute.

The Leesman data shared at the event put some numbers around this. The average home working environment scores 80.2, against 69.7 for the average office. Even the higher-performing Leesman + workplaces average 77.8.

So, an office needs to offer something different rather than simply trying to be a better version of home. A large part of that is other people.

Learning from colleagues is an obvious example and the research showed that employees value this more highly than they did before the pandemic. But there are also the things that are much harder to measure – the conversation you didn’t expect to have, picking something up from someone more experienced, helping a colleague with a problem or simply getting to know the people you work with.

That is why I thought the distinction between attendance and participation, highlighted by the seminar, was particularly important.

Someone can swipe into the office, sit at a desk for eight hours, spend much of the day on Teams calls or buried in their own work, and then go home. They have attended the office, tick. But what has really been gained from having them there.

Participation is a better test. Are people interacting, learning and contributing when they come in? Do they feel part of something?

You can’t manufacture that simply by telling people to collaborate. The space has to help, but so do behaviours and culture. Even the small routines that develop when people spend time together matter.
Some seemingly basic things can make a surprisingly big difference. Only 34% of employees in the research were satisfied with noise levels in their workplace. If I can concentrate better at home, and I am more comfortable there, there needs to be a good reason for me to make the journey into the office.

There isn’t a single answer on office design either. One finding I found interesting was that unassigned workplaces with a poor variety of spaces performed particularly badly, while those offering a good variety performed considerably better. That makes sense. People don’t do one type of work all day, so they need different environments, including places where it is easy to spend time with other people.

I also agreed with the point that workplace change shouldn’t begin simply by asking employees what they want. The first question is what the business needs its workplace to achieve. That might be better collaboration, sharing knowledge, building relationships or generating ideas. Once that is clear, employees can help shape an environment that actually supports it.

There is a message here for property owners, developers and occupiers. Hybrid working has raised the bar for the office. When going into the office five days a week was simply the routine, an average office could probably get away with being average. That is much harder when people now have a convenient and highly personalised alternative at home.

The office isn’t going to beat home at being home. Its advantage is everything that comes from being around other people – relationships, learning, shared experiences and a sense of belonging.

Getting people through the door is only half the job – the office has to make the journey worthwhile.

Would you like to know more?

If you have any questions about the above, please get it touch with your usual Blick Rothenberg contact or Mark using the form below.