Episode Transcript
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- [Ingrid] Hi, I'm Ingrid Bakker,
and this is Hassell Talks.
Welcome back.
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If you're a longtime listener,
you'll be familiar
with Hassell's AnnualWorkplace Futures Survey.
It's a survey that investigates
the changes organisationsare making their impact
and where they might be headed next.
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Hassell first ran it in 2020,
and every year since then
we have taken the pulse of the workplace
with the number of officeworkers involved in the survey
and locations growing each year.
So far, our four surveys
have quizzed over 9,000 office workers
and created over 1.8 million data points.
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Data points that have informed,
shaped and guided workplaces,
designers and the experienceof people around the world.
Office workers in Australia,Singapore, the UK, and U.S.,
have been part of the study from 2020.
And in 2022, we were ableto include Mainland China,
with Belgium, the Netherlands,
and Hong Kong added in 2023.
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This year's survey great adaptations
is the largest survey we've run to date
with over 3,500 people surveyed this year.
Its title reflects theadjustments workplaces are making
and adaptations organisations
are making around new work patterns.
With me today, is survey author,
Senior Researcher Daniel Davis.
(01:27):
Hi, Daniel.
- [Daniel] Hey.
- [Ingrid] Daniel, we'vebeen doing the survey
for four years now.
It was first run in the thick of COVID.
Before we talk about some of the results,
what is really standing out to you now?
What feels different?
- [Daniel] I think what'sreally different this year
is that it's really ina moment of transition
that in the previous years of the survey,
(01:47):
people kinda in the thick of it,
they're making changes on the fly.
It was very, like, just in the moment.
And I think what you're seeing now
is that organisations are starting
to take a breath a little bit,
look further ahead,
and they're starting tomake kinda lasting changes
to the organisation.
I think at the same time,
you're also seeing that work itself
has changed really dramatically,
(02:08):
but the office hasn't always kinda kept up
with those changes.
And so you're seeing thisdisconnect at the moment
between maybe what people'sexperience of work is
and what the workplacethat they're going back
to how that is structured.
- [Ingrid] Yeah, super interesting.
And how much universal alignment
are you seeing between markets after years
of big differences?
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- [Daniel] Yeah, so in the previous years
there always a lot of variations,
and that was driven largelyby what was happening
in each of the countries,
and so which countries werein the middle of the pandemic,
which ones were locking down,
which ones were opening back up.
This year, there's stilla lot of diversity.
We have a really diverse sample,
(02:51):
you know, like, China is very different
from the United States.
It's very different fromAustralia, Singapore,
so there's a lot ofvariation in the countries.
But I think one thing thatreally kinda comes through
in all of that is that,
we're seeing this kinda convergencein terms of flexibility.
That's a pretty universal trait
in all of these different countries.
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And we're also seeing some similarities
in the sort of amenities
that people are wanting in the workplaces
and the surrounding areas.
We're also seeing some changes, I think,
in the number of people
that are returning back towork pretty much increasing
in all the markets thatwe're studying at the moment.
- [Ingrid] And your results look at,
you know, the big global trends,
but also break it down intothose markets, don't they?
(03:33):
Which is particularlyinteresting for our clients
in so many parts of the world.
- [Daniel] Yeah, so wehave this big data set.
It looks at things globally,
but we also break it down
by demographic factors like people's ages,
industries, and thecountries that they're in.
So we can look at allthese kinda subgroupings
of what's happening around the world.
- [Ingrid] Yeah, fantastic.
(03:54):
Okay, let's jump intosome of these insights.
- [Daniel] So there were five things
that we found in the survey
and today we'll justfocus on three of them.
The first one was that,
people are returning to the office,
but that they're returning pretty slowly.
So across all the markets that we study,
the number of people inthe office is increasing
and the number of people
that are working at home is decreasing.
(04:18):
And there's a number ofdifferent reasons for this.
You know, obviously,
the lockdowns have ended
in all the places that we're studying,
so that makes a big difference.
You're seeing more organisationsrequiring employees
to work from the officeor encouraging them
to work from the office.
We're also seeing, Ithink, pretty interestingly
for the people that canchoose where to work,
(04:40):
more of those people that have the choice
of where they work,
deciding to spend more time in the office.
And that's something that we haven't seen
in the previous years of the survey.
- [Ingrid] Yeah, I think that'sthe really interesting thing
from my perspective.
You know, that's great news
that people are comingback into the office.
There seems to be kind of an upward trend,
(05:01):
which is great,
but, definitely, hybrid is here to stay.
So I think we all needto really embrace that
and make sure we understand how to make
that work within our workplaces.
But as you were saying,
there seems to be quitea strong correlation
between people's want toreturn to their workplaces
and their organization'sflexible working policies.
(05:22):
Can you talk a little bit more about that?
- [Daniel] The people in the survey,
they have a range ofdifferent workplace policies.
The ones that I thinktend to be doing the best,
tend to have a flexible policy.
So people want some autonomyover where they work,
they wanna be able to choose a place
that works best for them.
And, increasingly, thosepeople that have a choice
are choosing the office,
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but the only times that they're doing that
is really when the officeis working for them.
So these offices that havegood collaboration space,
good space to do,
focused productive workand good technology,
it's kinda three thingsthat are really key
to that experience.
And it sounds really basic,
but many workplaces don't get that right.
And so when thoseingredients are in place,
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you're seeing more people choosing
to be back into the office.
- [Ingrid] Yeah, great.
And I know a lot of ourclients are really focused
on, like, the precinct or the,
you know, the development,
not just within theactual office workplace,
but all of the amenityaround people's office
and, you know, what'shappening in the precinct.
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How important was that inthe findings around people
sort of, you know, what theywant when they come to work?
- [Daniel] Yes, so wehad a question this year
or a couple of questionsthis year in the survey,
asking people with whatthey were doing before
and after they came to work
and also what sort of amenities
they wanted around their building.
And I think there's two things
that really stood out to me from that.
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One is that, when peopleare coming into an office
they're not just going there to work,
they're often linking thattrip in with other things
that they wanna do or have to do.
So they might be visiting a grocery store,
they might be going to a bar,
they might be going to a gym.
And so they're making that commute
into the office worthwhile
by linking it with thingsthat they would've,
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and trips they would'veotherwise made anyway.
The other thing that wesaw in that data was that
the amenities that people want,
particularly around,like, office buildings
are pretty universal actually
in all the markets that we studied.
Grocery stores came out on top
and then retail and cafes andcoffee is up there as well.
(07:29):
- [Ingrid] Yeah, I'msuper interested about
the grocery store,
'cause I noticed that that was quite,
you know, really at the top
of every country's listalmost apart from a couple.
And I think that's quite different
to what we've seen inthe previous surveys.
So why do you think that's really risen
to the top this year?
- [Daniel] Yeah, so obviously,
there's a lot of concern atthe moment around things like
the cost of living, inflation,
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and I think you're seeing that
in the way that somepeople are prioritising
or making decisions at the moment.
So I think for the grocery store,
you know, like, part of itsappeal is that you can go there
and pick up a cheap lunchand go back to the office.
I think also part of it
is that you can pick up something fresh
and head back home at the end of the day.
So I think there's something there about
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the kinda cost of livingthat makes the grocery store
an appealing amenity at the moment.
- [Ingrid] Yeah, that makes sense.
I've been talking to a lot of our clients
and particularly thetenants that kind of saying,
"What's the one thingwe can do that's gonna,
you know, bring people back
or what's the one thing we can do
that's gonna make our workplace amazing?"
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Does the data give usthat kind of insight?
- [Daniel] Yeah, so wereally hope that we would get
that kinda insight inthe survey this year.
And we asked a lot ofquestions about changes
that organisations weremaking to the workplaces
in terms of, like, werethey adding phone booths in,
were they adding perks in,
were they adding more wellness spaces,
whatever it was.
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And we wanted to look at that
and see whether that correlatedwith higher rates of return
or more satisfaction with employees.
When we really dug into the data,
the thing that we,
that stood out was howmuch the changes depended
on the nature of the organisation.
So it wasn't one kind of universal change
that every organisation could make
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that would suddenly makethe workplace attractive
to their employees.
It really depended a loton the size of the company,
the kind of managementstyle and philosophy,
the location of their company globally,
the industry that the company was in,
and some of the culturalfactors around that.
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And when you look at thosekinda factors altogether,
you begin to get a sense ofwhich changes makes sense
for a particular organisation,
but it's really not
a one size fits all magicbullet available right now.
- [Ingrid] Yeah, and Ithink that makes sense,
given that every organisationis different anyway.
Given this was the first time
(09:54):
that everyone we surveyedwas out of lockdown,
all the previous surveys,
someone was in,
going into lockdown orcoming out of lockdown,
it kinda skewed the dataprobably a little bit,
but this was the first yeareveryone was out of lockdown.
Was there anything thatsurprised you in the data?
- [Daniel] So the thingthat surprised me was
you're never too sure whenyou run these surveys,
like where things are gonna end up.
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And I think, particularly,with the end of the lockdown,
you weren't sure kinda how hard things
were gonna bounce backin different regions.
I think probably thething that surprised me
the most was just seeing how China was,
how strong the return to office there was.
When I talk to people there,
it's almost, like,
(10:37):
things are close to beingback to normal there,
which definitely isn'tthe experience of people
in places like the UKor Europe or America.
So just seeing that strength
of the return therereally stood out to me,
I think, as being anoutlier in terms of that.
- [Ingrid] So, Daniel,
this is the fourth survey that we've run.
(10:57):
We're definitely gonnarun another one next year.
What do you think we'll seenext year in the survey?
What kind of things might we expect?
- [Daniel] So I'm assuming this year
we saw this sort of gradual increase
in the return to the office.
I think that we're gonna continueto see that year over year
for the next couple of years.
I'm not expecting things tobounce back to where they were.
(11:18):
I think you'll still seethis kinda continual focus
on hybrid work and employeeswanting flexibility.
I think there's also a whole bunch
of kinda macro factors that are outside
that are hard to anticipatewhere they're gonna go.
Like I think how the economygoes in the next year
is really gonna drive a lot of this
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and might end up influencing
a lot of what happens next year
in terms of the return to workor where people are working.
- [Ingrid] Yeah, great.
I look forward to next year's,
but for this year's, where can people go
to get the risk of theinsights from your research?
- [Daniel] Probably theeasiest place to get it
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is the house of website.
We have a insight section there
and the white paper is available there,
along with a blog post about it.
- [Ingrid] And also ifpeople want us to come
and present the insights,
we can also do that eithervia Teams or in-person,
depending on location.
So we're really opento people reaching out
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and if they want peoplewithin their organisation
to hear about this great research,
please just let us know.
Well, thanks for your time today, Daniel.
- Thank you.- I think it's,
you know, it's so fascinating.
I love reading the insights
as soon as they come out every year.
I think a lot of our clients do as well.
There's a lot of anticipationbuilding around what's next.
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So I think this is really,
really valuable insightsinto what people really want
from their workplace.
So,
you know, and, obviously,we wanna thank our clients
and our workplace collaborators
who we have so manyterrific conversations with
about these insightsand their observations
from their organisationsthat kind of helps us
to build the questions eachyear to really understand,
(13:09):
you know, what is going on.
I'm Ingrid Bakker,
I co-lead the workplaceand commercial sector.
And if you wanna know moreabout this great research,
as I said earlier, please reach out.
Either send us an email
to insight@hassellstudio.com,
and we'd be really happy to continue
the conversation with you.
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This episode was produced by Prue Vincent.
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