September 28, 2022 • 29 mins
When it comes to how workers feel about their workplace, it's hard to mount an argument against three years' worth of data and insights into possibly the most disruptive period for workers in memory. Senior Researcher Daniel Davis has been studying the effects and challenges facing workplaces in our Annual Workplace Futures Survey since 2020, and this year the survey grew to include 2,500 office workers across Australia, China, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom.
And while foot traffic is returning to central business districts on the weekends — weekday activity remains far below pre-pandemic levels. People are returning to the city but not to work. So how do we attract people back to the workplace and — after over two years of remote and hybrid working — is there reason enough for them to even be there?
In this episode of Hassell Talks, join Daniel and Principal Domino Risch as they share some behind the scenes insights and explore the top three takeouts from our latest annual workplace survey. To find out more, and download your own copy of the report, visit The Magnetic Workplace: 2022 Workplace Futures Survey
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
(gentle instrumental music)
- From international design firm Hassell,
this is "Hassell Talks".
Hi, I'm Domino Rich,
I'm a designer and commercial
and workplace sector leader at Hassell.
I love creating workplaces
that connect organisationalculture and performance,
that bring joy and inclusivityto all that use them,
(00:22):
and make us happier and healthierwhen we experience them.
Imagine that.
The last two years havebrought a particular scrutiny
to the very purpose ofworkplaces for all organisations.
And it doesn't matterwhether they're workplaces
for tech firms, finance,
professional services, legal,
all sectors are sure that theone thing we need to focus on
(00:44):
is how to get the most value out of space,
how to get people backin and how to make sure
that culture stays strong,connections are reinforced,
and that their people are thriving.
At Hasell, we're also thinking about this.
Since early 2020 we've beenfocusing on building up
a body of data from ourannual workplace survey,
(01:06):
which informs clients and ourown design teams, actually,
about what people are lookingfor in returning to work.
And it guides us during thisincredible time of change
for employers and employees alike.
This year the 2022 survey isbigger and better than ever,
and this time it includesinsight from China.
It also reinforces theapproach to hybrid working,
(01:28):
the role of flexibility in retention
and cultural development,and surprisingly,
the role of home in a workplace.
With me today is our surveyauthor and senior researcher,
and all round great guy, Daniel Davis.
Hi Daniel.
- Hey there, Domino, good to see you.
- Good to see you too.
You've been in the thick of it
and you know this data insideout and back the front.
(01:50):
So tell us a little bitabout what was different
in the way you approachedthis year's survey
to the other years?
- So it's the third year
that we've run the workplace survey.
And when the pandemic wasjust kicking off in 2020
and we were running a survey back then,
we were really interestedin just sort of how people
were doing and what was happeningin Australia at that time.
(02:11):
The next time that we ran it in 2021,
we became more interested
in kind of what was going on globally
and how people were doingin these different regions.
And then this year reallywhen we ran the survey,
the question that we were asking,
it wasn't so much focused necessarily
on like where people wereand what was happening,
although we were interested in that.
We're really trying toget into like why things
(02:31):
were the way they were
and why people wanted to workin the places they worked.
The other difference this yearis that we included China.
So this year we surveyedin Australia, Singapore,
China, the US,
and the UK, and itgives a really good feel
for what's happening around the world,
'cause all those countriesare culturally quite different
(02:54):
and there's interesting things happening
in each one of them.
- So Daniel, this year isthe first time the survey
has been run in China.
Can you talk a little bitabout how that was done
in terms of the mechanics of it,
but also any of the, you know,
things that needed to bedifferent to include China?
- Yeah, so China's one ofthe most challenging places
(03:16):
to survey, just given theregulations and stuff over there.
So the way that we surveyall the other countries
is that we work with athird party provider,
and they go and find all these people
to answer the survey for us.
So we tell 'em that wewanna survey office workers
and that we wanna representyour sample of people
between these ages, and thatwork in these industries,
(03:37):
and they go and find peoplethat fit that description
and get them to take thesurvey on our behalf.
And so we work with them aswell in China to do this.
One of the biggest challengesthat we had is that China
actually blocks a lotof apps that do surveys.
They don't want people,
particularly from America or Australia,
(03:57):
going over there andsurveying their population
and finding things out.
So they're very controllingover how that happens
and to the extent that for some surveys
you need a government licence, basically,
to send out a survey.
So we ended up havingto translate the survey
into another softwareto get it done and work
(04:18):
with another provider over there
to actually even host the survey.
And then we also had totranslate it into Chinese
so that it's obviouslyunderstandable for people over there.
So it was a lot of workto get it done in China,
but I'm really happy thatwe were able to do that.
It's such an interesting market
when it comes to the workplace.
(04:39):
There's obviously
a lot of differentprojects going on there,
there's a lot of companiesfrom outside China
that are coming into China,
and there's a real kind ofmixing of different ways
of thinking about the workplacehappening in that country.
And so it's really interestingto see what's happening now.
- Yeah, even the language that we use,
you know, the word lockdownisn't used in China,
(05:01):
you know, so even talking about
the shared COVID experienceglobally is, you know,
we need different language, right?
- Yeah, and when we ran the survey
it was sort of March and April of 2022,
and that was really the first time
that it's just at thestart of China having
a large COIVD outbreak in the country.
(05:24):
So I think part of what's going on there
is just the experience of COIVD's been
really different for people over there.
They haven't necessarilyhad the same danger
or the experience of danger
that people in places likeAmerica might have had,
but at the same time they've had
these government regulationsthat have controlled
a lot of how people behave.
(05:45):
So it's just a different wayof kind of experiencing that
and maybe some of the thingsthat we are experiencing
in the states, like two years ago,
they're beginning to experience
that same thing over there now.
- So what's new in the actualdata and the preferences?
Can you share some ofthe really key findings
that we've discovered?
- There were six insights that we found,
(06:08):
and today I'm just gonnafocus on three of them.
The thing that jumped out at me the most
when I was doing the analysiswas the role of the office
in terms of people's engagement.
So in the survey itself we asked people
a series of questions abouthow engaged they were at work,
how much they trusted their colleagues,
and other things related to that.
(06:28):
And those were scientific questions that,
like researchers had establishedin scientific papers,
and we asked thosequestions in the same way.
So we had these benchmarkways of measuring engagement.
Also in the survey we asked people
how much time they spent in an office
and how much time they spent at home?
(06:49):
And we had a series ofquestions that teased it up,
'cause it's actuallyquite complex working out
where people are working.
And what was interestingis that when we took
those two data sets andwe combined them together,
is that there was this realrelationship between them,
that people that worked athome 100% of their time,
their engagement, it mighthave been around like 60-70%,
(07:11):
but you saw on the graphthat as people spent longer
and longer or did more and moreof their work in the office,
their engagement tended to increase,
their trust in colleaguestended to increase.
But you also saw at thevery end of those graphs,
the people that spent 100%of their time in the office
actually weren't doing toowell in terms of things
(07:31):
like engagement and trust.
And so there was thisreal sweet spot of people
that were in the office, maybe60-80% of their work week,
they weren't there full-time,
sort of doing this hybrid mode of working,
who tended to be the mostengaged people in the survey,
the most trusting of their colleagues,
and all these important outcomes
that we measure in terms of things
(07:52):
that ultimately lead to productivity,
and retention in the workforce.
- And Daniel, do you thinkfrom that we can also infer
that perhaps given there's alot of survey data out there
at the moment that saysalmost nobody elects
to be at work five days a week anymore,
that the people who arethere five days a week
maybe haven't got choice in that,
(08:14):
and that's what's driving that, you know,
difficulty in feeling connection
and being trusted by the organisation?
- Yeah, there's definitely something odd
going on with the people thatthey're like five days a week.
- Yeah, that's odd, right?
- Yeah, no it is.
I mean, even before the pandemicit was common for people
(08:34):
to do work in the officebut also to work at home.
And we maybe didn't thinkof that as hybrid working
in the way that we think of it now,
but it was a form of hybrid working.
And so there's peoplethat are in the office
doing 100% of their work there.
There's something about theway that they experience that
that isn't positive.
And the thing that I thinkreally draws that out
(08:57):
is when you look at,
we ask people abouttheir workplace policy,
and so we ask them, like,
are you required to come into the office?
Are you allowed to workin this hybrid manner?
Are you working at home completely?
And what we saw there is thatpeople that were required
to be in the office full-time
were about twice as likely tobe thinking about resigning
as people that had somedegree of flexibility.
(09:19):
And this is well knownin workplace research,
but people that are givenautonomy and flexibility,
they tend to be happierin what they're doing
because they have some choice in it.
And so we see that whenyou take away that choice,
people tend to havethese negative outcomes,
and you also see it in theother direction as well.
People that are forced to work at home
and don't have the optionof working in another place,
(09:40):
they often are more likely tobe thinking about resigning
than the people in the middlethere that have this choice
about whether they're workingat home or the office,
and change that choicethroughout the week.
- So it sort of leadsus to conclude, I guess,
that policies, procedures,
and protocols that organisationsare wrapping around,
(10:01):
you know, flexible work have
a massive contributingfactor to the culture
that ultimately they end up with.
So that's such a key finding, isn't it?
- Yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, I think someof these organisations
are potentially getting themselves into
a bit of a tricky spot, you know?
Like we're seeing companies coming out
(10:21):
very strongly one way or the other
in terms of working from homeor working from the office,
and pushing employees ina particular direction.
And I think long term that's not
a positive thing for their cultures.
- When people are electingto come to the office,
I suppose, Daniel,
from the data, what is itthat they're looking for
(10:43):
do you think?
What is it that's attracting them back
or that they're seekingthat they're not getting
in working from home,
obviously beyond their interpersonal
and sort of face-to-faceand social elements?
- Yeah, so we asked people what it was
that they wanted to see from the workplace
when they returned.
And we gave them a list ofitems and we asked them,
(11:07):
kind of like, which ones ofthese would you most like to see
in your office when you return,
or if you're there currently,what would you like to see?
And the first one orthe most popular option
was free food and lunch.
And that's something that's come up.
- Of course.- Yeah,
it always comes up in our surveys.
And I mean, it is funny,
but it's also serious in some ways.
(11:30):
Because you think of free food and lunch,
and you're like hmm,it's just like someone
wants to have like a $10 lunch
or whatever given by their company.
But I think more than thatit's that they want to connect
with their colleagues andspend time with one another
and to socialise with people.
- I've been thinking alot about this data point,
'cause it's come up in all three surveys,
as if not one of,- Yeah.
(11:51):
- but the actual highest, you know,
thing on the list of things that people
would like in returning to work.
My theory, is similar to yours,
Daniel, in that, you know,
we're human creatures, we'veevolved over millennia to,
you know, be stronger as in groups.
And you know, whether that's family units,
or tribes, or you know,
(12:12):
small cities and townsthrough much of history.
And when we're forced to live alone
or just to retreat to ourkind of nuclear families
through lockdowns and so on,
what we miss is thatsense of being together,
breaking bread, you know,
sharing a meal, that'straditionally how people
would choose to come togetherin a work environment,
(12:34):
that's obviously less traditional
unless you live in Scandinavia
and you have a cafeteria lunch,
which is quite common overthere, together as a group.
And I think that's what's drivingthis desire for, you know,
the food at work, because it's a metaphor,
I think, or a vehicle,
for reconnecting with people.
So I don't think it'sso much about the food,
(12:55):
I think it's the activity of food
that's putting that so high on the list.
- I've read recentlythat the word company,
like the origin of thatword, like pan, is bread,
and it means sort of comingtogether to break bread,
essentially as a group,
which I think isinteresting in that sense.
(13:16):
(gentle instrumental music)
The next sort of most popularthings that we saw this year
were fresh air from outsideand gardens and green space.
And I'm not sure if that'ssomething you've been hearing
from your client's, Domino,
but I think it makes sense to me
that like we've beenspending so much time inside
that people want to haveconnection to the outside,
and I also think thatthere's this thing going on
(13:37):
where we associate the outsidewith being safe at the moment
and inside with some element of danger.
And I think there'ssomething going on there
that's important.
- 100%.
I mean, I think oursurvey doesn't really ask
a whole lot of questions abouthow people feel about COVID,
because that's such arapidly changing scenario.
It's really hard to pin things down
(13:59):
and the data's irrelevantalmost immediately.
But I think there's a currentof COVID, or you know,
maybe a lack of trustin the built environment
that's arisen over thelast couple of years,
understanding that it'san airborne disease,
and filtration and mechanicalair conditioning systems
have a really big role toplay in keeping us safe.
(14:21):
And so I wonder whetherthe desire for fresh air,
gardens and green space is twofold.
First is, you know,
that idea of a safe environment outside,
mask-less particularly, often outside.
But also I think, and thisis a really interesting one
I heard the other day, my husbandwent and had an eye check,
'cause he's been workingfrom home a lot as well.
(14:43):
And the optometristsaid that people's lack
of getting outside regularlyover the last couple of years
is contributing to a rapiddegeneration of eye health
across our entire societies,
because we're not gettingexposed towards much sunlight.
We know we're notshifting our focal lengths
as often during the daywhen we're, you know,
(15:04):
at our dining room tableslooking at a screen
and not moving around the office as much.
And so there's somesort of knock on effects
to all of that, aren't there,
in terms of health and wellbeing?
And I think the desire forfresh air and green space
is really just, again,
another metaphor for wantingto be out in the open.
- I think everyone listen to that probably
(15:25):
just looked up to changewhere they're looking.
(laughing together)
- And the kitchen's probablynot far away enough,
just a helpful hint, you wannalook outside to the horizon.
- So the things that we sawafter fresh air and gardens,
green space, the kind of four elements,
(15:45):
they all go together,and it was good coffee,
enough space to focus without distraction,
a private gym, and a space to take a nap.
And I think that's an interesting list
just because they'reall things that people
had access to in their home environment.
Like, well,
we had hopefully good coffee there,
a lot of people worked out
(16:07):
in their home environment somehow,
a lot of people were able to take a nap
if they got exhausted during the day
and recharge in that way.
And so these are allkind of domestic elements
that I think people arewanting to take back with them
in some way to the office
that they've had this experience at home
of working there and enjoyedsome parts of that freedom
and that amenity package,
(16:28):
and they wanna see some ofthat come back into the office.
- So when people are giving us answers
that they want their office to bring
in some of those elements of home,
I don't think they'resaying they wanna feel
like they're working in their house again.
What do you think arethe kinds of settings
(16:48):
or solutions that wouldhelp people feel like work
is a little bit more homelike?
- Yeah, I think,
like it can be done through design.
So domestic elements of furniture,
you see that a lot in co-working spaces,
the way that they're laid out
and the way that the furnitureis organised and selected
(17:08):
often has a domestickind of element to it.
And I think also puttingin some of these spaces
like things like coffeeand amenities like that,
like a cafe, are allthings that can be done
to make the office more attractive
to these employees coming back.
- One of the things that I'm often hearing
in the return to work, asnumbers really ramp up,
(17:31):
is that it's turned good,open plan workplaces
into kind of really bad call centres,
because everybody'ssitting next to each other
in the open plan on Zoom calls,
and often on the same Zoom calls,
and you get that horribleecho, echo, echo situation.
So you know, from adesign perspective I think
we can really hand on heartsay we're going to see
(17:51):
a rise of maybe retreat spaces,
quiet rooms, small Zoom rooms,
things like that wheresmall groups of people
can get together and sharethe same conversation
without all being on theirown individual laptops.
But I also think commensuratelywe'll see less workstations.
I've got my fingers crossed
there's someone listeningto this out there
who really wants towork with a design team
who are keen to push theboundaries and maybe create
(18:13):
the first desk-less office,slightly controversial.
I had a conversation witha client the other day who,
you know, we were proposingthis series of spaces
that weren't gonna behaving dedicated screens
or monitors on desks, you know,
they were places that were more
for short-term workingpeople who were dropping
in between meetings, or you know,
(18:33):
who wanted to talk to their team members
but didn't necessarilyneed full, you know,
32 inch monitors, and dual screens,
and all the rest of it.
And you know, the comment was,
but actually don't we needplaces for people to work?
You know, people can't beproductive at places like that.
And so I think we've stillgot a while to go, don't you,
on understanding,
(18:54):
you know, that productivityat work isn't all
about sitting in frontof a screen anymore,
and maybe one of thethings that has to happen
in the world of workplacedesign and strategy
is an acceptance thatconcentrated, individual work
maybe isn't best in bigfields of wide open space
but needs to be in places where people
can really get into that sense of flow
(19:15):
and be sort of uninterruptedin their thinking time.
And that maybe the sorts of spaces
that that will replaceare places that, you know,
actually encourage peopleto bond, to have fun,
you know, to have acup of coffee together.
Because as my response was to the person
who I was having thisconversation with was,
well, just 'cause they'rehaving coffee together
(19:36):
doesn't mean they'renot working, you know,
that's still work ifthey're talking about work
or even if they're justfiguring out how to be friends,
that's still an element of work.
You know, team members have to know,
and like, and trust each other,
and building those bonds is critical
to success of organisations.
And stop thinking about workas purely a workplace maybe
(19:56):
as being a factory forindividual productivity.
And it's gonna be a lot morethan that in the future,
which is part of the way Ithink we'll encourage people
back to work by saying,
maybe there's no workstations anymore.
- Oh I like that idea.
Yeah, it would be so fun to work on that.
- What about differencesacross different regions?
You know, where were the similarities
(20:18):
and where were thedifferences in the data?
- Yeah, probably one similarity
that surprised me actually was
where people are working at the moment.
So we asked people, you know,
like are you working at home,are you working in an office?
How much of your time isspending in those things?
And actually when we ranthe survey this year,
most people were workingin a hybrid manner.
(20:39):
And the reason that that surprises me
is that like last yearwhen we ran the survey,
there's actually a lot of variation
between all these different countries
that all sort of dealt with the pandemic
a little bit differently,
and because of how thepandemic was evolving
in each of those countries,
you saw these differentrates of working from home.
So working from home wasreally high in places
(21:01):
like the States and the UK,
and a lot of people in, say,
Australia were working from an office.
You saw a lot of variety andlike where people were working.
And this year it was actuallyremarkably consistent
between all of the places.
For the most part wherepeople were working tended
to be a hybrid of the office and the home.
(21:22):
And that sort of settling down
seems to me sort of beindicating that maybe this
is the new directionthat, like a lot of things
we tried during the pandemic,
all these countries are insort of different places,
and things sort of bit seem tobe reverting back into this,
I wouldn't say normal,
but like they're sayingto revert back into maybe
(21:45):
what is the new normal,to use an overused term.
- The modern workplace,
perhaps.- Yeah.
- Let's stop using COVID references.
One of the things I'm really interested
in hearing from you too, Daniel,
is about what we areseeing in terms of maybe
(22:06):
how we measure attendance and workplace.
You know, we're seeing as you say,
you know, a steady rise in presence.
Do you think there's any clues
as to how we might startto measure workplaces?
I mean, the old measureis how many head count
per square metre, andyou've got a density ratio.
When people aren't always there,
(22:27):
and I think we can safelysay the office isn't dead,
but maybe 9:00 to 5:00 is dead,
do we start measuring byamount of people present?
Often we talk about thelanguage of, you know,
workplace metrics isgoing to have to change
(22:47):
and continue to evolve,
because of what we'reall living through here.
Any clues as to wherewe're headed with that?
- Yeah, I think certainly you're seeing,
like during the pandemicthere was an acceleration
and adoption of technologyaround measuring things
like presence.
But I think also this questionof like how you measure
(23:08):
the utility of theworkplace goes back to maybe
that earlier pointabout like it's not just
about people sitting at desks,like just knocking out work,
that workplace has this other purpose,
and maybe before the pandemic that purpose
was almost implied or itwasn't explicitly stated,
and we just took it for granted
that people in an officewere doing the thing
(23:29):
that they needed to be doingto make the company operate.
And I think coming out of the pandemic,
the real kind of questionthat a lot of organisations
are grappling with is like,
what is the purpose of aworkplace in this organisation?
And I think really like to go back
to the sort of fundamental principles,
like by what you define thepurpose of the workplace as,
(23:52):
like that should be the thingthat leads to the metrics.
So if it is about people coming together
and having these shared experiences,
like maybe that should be the metric,
not the number of people are there,
but like the quality of the connections.
Or if it's aboutcreativity and making sure
that ideas are spreadacross the organisation,
like that should be the metric
and maybe not so much the square footage.
(24:14):
- It's fascinating, isn't it,
because the CFOs ofthe world still looking
for ways of, you know,
getting, as you saymore agency and utility
from their biggest, asidefrom their salary expense,
the biggest cost that anorganisation typically has
is its real estate costs,
and you know, how to getmore value out of that
(24:37):
is certainly the question of the time.
I'm fascinated by the idea of moving on
from Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 5:00.
I think that the survey shows
some fairly regularpatterns of attendance,
doesn't it, Daniel?
I think that's kind of become, as you say,
the new norm.
- Yeah, and I thinkeveryone's aware of this,
but attendance on Mondays and Fridays
(24:58):
is really just down ina lot of organisations,
and people, when they'rechoosing to come into the office,
they're tending to chooseto come in on Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Thursday.
And one thing that might have surprise,
well, it did surprise me from the data,
was just who wanted to work where.
So we asked both like individual employees
(25:21):
and managers what days theywanted to come into the office
and sort of how much timethey ideally want to spend
in the office on those days.
What you saw there wasthat individual employees
were actually quite polarisedin what they wanted.
They either wanted one or the other,
they wanted to come into the office
or they wanted to work at home.
When you look at managers,
(25:42):
they're actually theones that were most open
to spending part oftheir time in the office
and part of their timeat home in a single day.
And I thought that wasjust really fascinating,
'cause we think of managers
as wanting everyone to beback in the office with them
and to be there full-time.
And actually when you go
(26:03):
and talk to the managers themselves,
what they want is somethinga little bit different,
at least for themselves,maybe not for their employees.
- It's always been the way, hasn't it,
the white collars versus the blue collars,
the workers versus the bosses. (laughs)
Always a slightly different approach.
As we start to wrap this up, Daniel,
(26:26):
I am really fascinated bywhat you think we're gonna see
in 2023 survey, have you got any brave,
bold predictions for uson what we're gonna see?
- I wasn't prepared for that one, Domino.
(laughing together)
Careful at the end.
So I think the interesting partof doing the surveying work
(26:46):
is that we have done it nowfor three years in a row.
So we're starting to geta database of insights
on how people across the world are feeling
and behaving as itrelates to the workplace.
So for sure when we runthe survey next year,
we're gonna be able to benchmark,
like what was happening this year
against what was happening next year,
and I think those are gonnabe really interesting to see,
(27:08):
because a lot's gonna happenin the next year in terms of,
I think companies gonna have
to start making decisionsin the next year,
they've been holdingthings off for so long
that they're really gonna settle down.
So we'll see a lot of that coming
through in the data next year.
I think also, hopefullywe'll be able to expand
the survey out a little bit
and there's some other regions
(27:29):
that we've always been curious about
but we haven't surveyed yet.
So it'd be fun to do that too.
- I like that, we're workplace curious
in various regions of the world.
I'm really looking forwardto seeing, you know,
free food and great coffeeagain on the top of the list.
My prediction for next yearis that's not going anywhere.
(27:49):
But I'm really lookingforward to sharing the data
from this year's survey as we go through
the next 12 months with organisations
to really reinforce this amazingstatistic that we've got,
that more presence in the workplace leads
to greater engagement,greater levels of trust,
and a much higher feeling of belonging,
(28:11):
if you don't force people to do that
and give them choice and autonomy.
I think of all of theinformation we've been able
to glean out of the lastthree years worth of data,
that to me is absolute workplace gold,
and is the clue in my way of thinking,
or the holy grail, of howwe're gonna get through this
(28:32):
is choice, autonomy,
and creating magneticworkplace experiences
that people are really,really going to love.
Thank you so much, Daniel,
it's been so nice to talk to you.
- Thanks, Domino,
it's great talking with you.
- So if you guys wanna know more,
please feel free to email us
at insight@hassellstudio, one word, .com.
(28:54):
There's more greatepisodes coming your way,
so keep an ear out for those.
I'm Domino Rich, Hassel's commercial
and workplace sector leader,
and I've been talkingto Daniel Davis today,
our senior researcher.
Thanks heaps and keep an earout for the next episode, bye.
(gentle instrumental music)
(gentle instrumental music)
- From international design firm Hassell,
this is "Hassell Talks".
Hi, I'm Domino Rich,
I'm a designer and commercial
and workplace sector leader at Hassell.
I love creating workplaces
that connect organisationalculture and performance,
that bring joy and inclusivityto all that use them,
(00:22):
and make us happier and healthierwhen we experience them.
Imagine that.
The last two years havebrought a particular scrutiny
to the very purpose ofworkplaces for all organisations.
And it doesn't matterwhether they're workplaces
for tech firms, finance,
professional services, legal,
all sectors are sure that theone thing we need to focus on
(00:44):
is how to get the most value out of space,
how to get people backin and how to make sure
that culture stays strong,connections are reinforced,
and that their people are thriving.
At Hasell, we're also thinking about this.
Since early 2020 we've beenfocusing on building up
a body of data from ourannual workplace survey,
(01:06):
which informs clients and ourown design teams, actually,
about what people are lookingfor in returning to work.
And it guides us during thisincredible time of change
for employers and employees alike.
This year the 2022 survey isbigger and better than ever,
and this time it includesinsight from China.
It also reinforces theapproach to hybrid working,
(01:28):
the role of flexibility in retention
and cultural development,and surprisingly,
the role of home in a workplace.
With me today is our surveyauthor and senior researcher,
and all round great guy, Daniel Davis.
Hi Daniel.
- Hey there, Domino, good to see you.
- Good to see you too.
You've been in the thick of it
and you know this data insideout and back the front.
(01:50):
So tell us a little bitabout what was different
in the way you approachedthis year's survey
to the other years?
- So it's the third year
that we've run the workplace survey.
And when the pandemic wasjust kicking off in 2020
and we were running a survey back then,
we were really interestedin just sort of how people
were doing and what was happeningin Australia at that time.
(02:11):
The next time that we ran it in 2021,
we became more interested
in kind of what was going on globally
and how people were doingin these different regions.
And then this year reallywhen we ran the survey,
the question that we were asking,
it wasn't so much focused necessarily
on like where people wereand what was happening,
although we were interested in that.
We're really trying toget into like why things
(02:31):
were the way they were
and why people wanted to workin the places they worked.
The other difference this yearis that we included China.
So this year we surveyedin Australia, Singapore,
China, the US,
and the UK, and itgives a really good feel
for what's happening around the world,
'cause all those countriesare culturally quite different
(02:54):
and there's interesting things happening
in each one of them.
- So Daniel, this year isthe first time the survey
has been run in China.
Can you talk a little bitabout how that was done
in terms of the mechanics of it,
but also any of the, you know,
things that needed to bedifferent to include China?
- Yeah, so China's one ofthe most challenging places
(03:16):
to survey, just given theregulations and stuff over there.
So the way that we surveyall the other countries
is that we work with athird party provider,
and they go and find all these people
to answer the survey for us.
So we tell 'em that wewanna survey office workers
and that we wanna representyour sample of people
between these ages, and thatwork in these industries,
(03:37):
and they go and find peoplethat fit that description
and get them to take thesurvey on our behalf.
And so we work with them aswell in China to do this.
One of the biggest challengesthat we had is that China
actually blocks a lotof apps that do surveys.
They don't want people,
particularly from America or Australia,
(03:57):
going over there andsurveying their population
and finding things out.
So they're very controllingover how that happens
and to the extent that for some surveys
you need a government licence, basically,
to send out a survey.
So we ended up havingto translate the survey
into another softwareto get it done and work
(04:18):
with another provider over there
to actually even host the survey.
And then we also had totranslate it into Chinese
so that it's obviouslyunderstandable for people over there.
So it was a lot of workto get it done in China,
but I'm really happy thatwe were able to do that.
It's such an interesting market
when it comes to the workplace.
(04:39):
There's obviously
a lot of differentprojects going on there,
there's a lot of companiesfrom outside China
that are coming into China,
and there's a real kind ofmixing of different ways
of thinking about the workplacehappening in that country.
And so it's really interestingto see what's happening now.
- Yeah, even the language that we use,
you know, the word lockdownisn't used in China,
(05:01):
you know, so even talking about
the shared COVID experienceglobally is, you know,
we need different language, right?
- Yeah, and when we ran the survey
it was sort of March and April of 2022,
and that was really the first time
that it's just at thestart of China having
a large COIVD outbreak in the country.
(05:24):
So I think part of what's going on there
is just the experience of COIVD's been
really different for people over there.
They haven't necessarilyhad the same danger
or the experience of danger
that people in places likeAmerica might have had,
but at the same time they've had
these government regulationsthat have controlled
a lot of how people behave.
(05:45):
So it's just a different wayof kind of experiencing that
and maybe some of the thingsthat we are experiencing
in the states, like two years ago,
they're beginning to experience
that same thing over there now.
- So what's new in the actualdata and the preferences?
Can you share some ofthe really key findings
that we've discovered?
- There were six insights that we found,
(06:08):
and today I'm just gonnafocus on three of them.
The thing that jumped out at me the most
when I was doing the analysiswas the role of the office
in terms of people's engagement.
So in the survey itself we asked people
a series of questions abouthow engaged they were at work,
how much they trusted their colleagues,
and other things related to that.
(06:28):
And those were scientific questions that,
like researchers had establishedin scientific papers,
and we asked thosequestions in the same way.
So we had these benchmarkways of measuring engagement.
Also in the survey we asked people
how much time they spent in an office
and how much time they spent at home?
(06:49):
And we had a series ofquestions that teased it up,
'cause it's actuallyquite complex working out
where people are working.
And what was interestingis that when we took
those two data sets andwe combined them together,
is that there was this realrelationship between them,
that people that worked athome 100% of their time,
their engagement, it mighthave been around like 60-70%,
(07:11):
but you saw on the graphthat as people spent longer
and longer or did more and moreof their work in the office,
their engagement tended to increase,
their trust in colleaguestended to increase.
But you also saw at thevery end of those graphs,
the people that spent 100%of their time in the office
actually weren't doing toowell in terms of things
(07:31):
like engagement and trust.
And so there was thisreal sweet spot of people
that were in the office, maybe60-80% of their work week,
they weren't there full-time,
sort of doing this hybrid mode of working,
who tended to be the mostengaged people in the survey,
the most trusting of their colleagues,
and all these important outcomes
that we measure in terms of things
(07:52):
that ultimately lead to productivity,
and retention in the workforce.
- And Daniel, do you thinkfrom that we can also infer
that perhaps given there's alot of survey data out there
at the moment that saysalmost nobody elects
to be at work five days a week anymore,
that the people who arethere five days a week
maybe haven't got choice in that,
(08:14):
and that's what's driving that, you know,
difficulty in feeling connection
and being trusted by the organisation?
- Yeah, there's definitely something odd
going on with the people thatthey're like five days a week.
- Yeah, that's odd, right?
- Yeah, no it is.
I mean, even before the pandemicit was common for people
(08:34):
to do work in the officebut also to work at home.
And we maybe didn't thinkof that as hybrid working
in the way that we think of it now,
but it was a form of hybrid working.
And so there's peoplethat are in the office
doing 100% of their work there.
There's something about theway that they experience that
that isn't positive.
And the thing that I thinkreally draws that out
(08:57):
is when you look at,
we ask people abouttheir workplace policy,
and so we ask them, like,
are you required to come into the office?
Are you allowed to workin this hybrid manner?
Are you working at home completely?
And what we saw there is thatpeople that were required
to be in the office full-time
were about twice as likely tobe thinking about resigning
as people that had somedegree of flexibility.
(09:19):
And this is well knownin workplace research,
but people that are givenautonomy and flexibility,
they tend to be happierin what they're doing
because they have some choice in it.
And so we see that whenyou take away that choice,
people tend to havethese negative outcomes,
and you also see it in theother direction as well.
People that are forced to work at home
and don't have the optionof working in another place,
(09:40):
they often are more likely tobe thinking about resigning
than the people in the middlethere that have this choice
about whether they're workingat home or the office,
and change that choicethroughout the week.
- So it sort of leadsus to conclude, I guess,
that policies, procedures,
and protocols that organisationsare wrapping around,
(10:01):
you know, flexible work have
a massive contributingfactor to the culture
that ultimately they end up with.
So that's such a key finding, isn't it?
- Yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, I think someof these organisations
are potentially getting themselves into
a bit of a tricky spot, you know?
Like we're seeing companies coming out
(10:21):
very strongly one way or the other
in terms of working from homeor working from the office,
and pushing employees ina particular direction.
And I think long term that's not
a positive thing for their cultures.
- When people are electingto come to the office,
I suppose, Daniel,
from the data, what is itthat they're looking for
(10:43):
do you think?
What is it that's attracting them back
or that they're seekingthat they're not getting
in working from home,
obviously beyond their interpersonal
and sort of face-to-faceand social elements?
- Yeah, so we asked people what it was
that they wanted to see from the workplace
when they returned.
And we gave them a list ofitems and we asked them,
(11:07):
kind of like, which ones ofthese would you most like to see
in your office when you return,
or if you're there currently,what would you like to see?
And the first one orthe most popular option
was free food and lunch.
And that's something that's come up.
- Of course.- Yeah,
it always comes up in our surveys.
And I mean, it is funny,
but it's also serious in some ways.
(11:30):
Because you think of free food and lunch,
and you're like hmm,it's just like someone
wants to have like a $10 lunch
or whatever given by their company.
But I think more than thatit's that they want to connect
with their colleagues andspend time with one another
and to socialise with people.
- I've been thinking alot about this data point,
'cause it's come up in all three surveys,
as if not one of,- Yeah.
(11:51):
- but the actual highest, you know,
thing on the list of things that people
would like in returning to work.
My theory, is similar to yours,
Daniel, in that, you know,
we're human creatures, we'veevolved over millennia to,
you know, be stronger as in groups.
And you know, whether that's family units,
or tribes, or you know,
(12:12):
small cities and townsthrough much of history.
And when we're forced to live alone
or just to retreat to ourkind of nuclear families
through lockdowns and so on,
what we miss is thatsense of being together,
breaking bread, you know,
sharing a meal, that'straditionally how people
would choose to come togetherin a work environment,
(12:34):
that's obviously less traditional
unless you live in Scandinavia
and you have a cafeteria lunch,
which is quite common overthere, together as a group.
And I think that's what's drivingthis desire for, you know,
the food at work, because it's a metaphor,
I think, or a vehicle,
for reconnecting with people.
So I don't think it'sso much about the food,
(12:55):
I think it's the activity of food
that's putting that so high on the list.
- I've read recentlythat the word company,
like the origin of thatword, like pan, is bread,
and it means sort of comingtogether to break bread,
essentially as a group,
which I think isinteresting in that sense.
(13:16):
(gentle instrumental music)
The next sort of most popularthings that we saw this year
were fresh air from outsideand gardens and green space.
And I'm not sure if that'ssomething you've been hearing
from your client's, Domino,
but I think it makes sense to me
that like we've beenspending so much time inside
that people want to haveconnection to the outside,
and I also think thatthere's this thing going on
(13:37):
where we associate the outsidewith being safe at the moment
and inside with some element of danger.
And I think there'ssomething going on there
that's important.
- 100%.
I mean, I think oursurvey doesn't really ask
a whole lot of questions abouthow people feel about COVID,
because that's such arapidly changing scenario.
It's really hard to pin things down
(13:59):
and the data's irrelevantalmost immediately.
But I think there's a currentof COVID, or you know,
maybe a lack of trustin the built environment
that's arisen over thelast couple of years,
understanding that it'san airborne disease,
and filtration and mechanicalair conditioning systems
have a really big role toplay in keeping us safe.
(14:21):
And so I wonder whetherthe desire for fresh air,
gardens and green space is twofold.
First is, you know,
that idea of a safe environment outside,
mask-less particularly, often outside.
But also I think, and thisis a really interesting one
I heard the other day, my husbandwent and had an eye check,
'cause he's been workingfrom home a lot as well.
(14:43):
And the optometristsaid that people's lack
of getting outside regularlyover the last couple of years
is contributing to a rapiddegeneration of eye health
across our entire societies,
because we're not gettingexposed towards much sunlight.
We know we're notshifting our focal lengths
as often during the daywhen we're, you know,
(15:04):
at our dining room tableslooking at a screen
and not moving around the office as much.
And so there's somesort of knock on effects
to all of that, aren't there,
in terms of health and wellbeing?
And I think the desire forfresh air and green space
is really just, again,
another metaphor for wantingto be out in the open.
- I think everyone listen to that probably
(15:25):
just looked up to changewhere they're looking.
(laughing together)
- And the kitchen's probablynot far away enough,
just a helpful hint, you wannalook outside to the horizon.
- So the things that we sawafter fresh air and gardens,
green space, the kind of four elements,
(15:45):
they all go together,and it was good coffee,
enough space to focus without distraction,
a private gym, and a space to take a nap.
And I think that's an interesting list
just because they'reall things that people
had access to in their home environment.
Like, well,
we had hopefully good coffee there,
a lot of people worked out
(16:07):
in their home environment somehow,
a lot of people were able to take a nap
if they got exhausted during the day
and recharge in that way.
And so these are allkind of domestic elements
that I think people arewanting to take back with them
in some way to the office
that they've had this experience at home
of working there and enjoyedsome parts of that freedom
and that amenity package,
(16:28):
and they wanna see some ofthat come back into the office.
- So when people are giving us answers
that they want their office to bring
in some of those elements of home,
I don't think they'resaying they wanna feel
like they're working in their house again.
What do you think arethe kinds of settings
(16:48):
or solutions that wouldhelp people feel like work
is a little bit more homelike?
- Yeah, I think,
like it can be done through design.
So domestic elements of furniture,
you see that a lot in co-working spaces,
the way that they're laid out
and the way that the furnitureis organised and selected
(17:08):
often has a domestickind of element to it.
And I think also puttingin some of these spaces
like things like coffeeand amenities like that,
like a cafe, are allthings that can be done
to make the office more attractive
to these employees coming back.
- One of the things that I'm often hearing
in the return to work, asnumbers really ramp up,
(17:31):
is that it's turned good,open plan workplaces
into kind of really bad call centres,
because everybody'ssitting next to each other
in the open plan on Zoom calls,
and often on the same Zoom calls,
and you get that horribleecho, echo, echo situation.
So you know, from adesign perspective I think
we can really hand on heartsay we're going to see
(17:51):
a rise of maybe retreat spaces,
quiet rooms, small Zoom rooms,
things like that wheresmall groups of people
can get together and sharethe same conversation
without all being on theirown individual laptops.
But I also think commensuratelywe'll see less workstations.
I've got my fingers crossed
there's someone listeningto this out there
who really wants towork with a design team
who are keen to push theboundaries and maybe create
(18:13):
the first desk-less office,slightly controversial.
I had a conversation witha client the other day who,
you know, we were proposingthis series of spaces
that weren't gonna behaving dedicated screens
or monitors on desks, you know,
they were places that were more
for short-term workingpeople who were dropping
in between meetings, or you know,
(18:33):
who wanted to talk to their team members
but didn't necessarilyneed full, you know,
32 inch monitors, and dual screens,
and all the rest of it.
And you know, the comment was,
but actually don't we needplaces for people to work?
You know, people can't beproductive at places like that.
And so I think we've stillgot a while to go, don't you,
on understanding,
(18:54):
you know, that productivityat work isn't all
about sitting in frontof a screen anymore,
and maybe one of thethings that has to happen
in the world of workplacedesign and strategy
is an acceptance thatconcentrated, individual work
maybe isn't best in bigfields of wide open space
but needs to be in places where people
can really get into that sense of flow
(19:15):
and be sort of uninterruptedin their thinking time.
And that maybe the sorts of spaces
that that will replaceare places that, you know,
actually encourage peopleto bond, to have fun,
you know, to have acup of coffee together.
Because as my response was to the person
who I was having thisconversation with was,
well, just 'cause they'rehaving coffee together
(19:36):
doesn't mean they'renot working, you know,
that's still work ifthey're talking about work
or even if they're justfiguring out how to be friends,
that's still an element of work.
You know, team members have to know,
and like, and trust each other,
and building those bonds is critical
to success of organisations.
And stop thinking about workas purely a workplace maybe
(19:56):
as being a factory forindividual productivity.
And it's gonna be a lot morethan that in the future,
which is part of the way Ithink we'll encourage people
back to work by saying,
maybe there's no workstations anymore.
- Oh I like that idea.
Yeah, it would be so fun to work on that.
- What about differencesacross different regions?
You know, where were the similarities
(20:18):
and where were thedifferences in the data?
- Yeah, probably one similarity
that surprised me actually was
where people are working at the moment.
So we asked people, you know,
like are you working at home,are you working in an office?
How much of your time isspending in those things?
And actually when we ranthe survey this year,
most people were workingin a hybrid manner.
(20:39):
And the reason that that surprises me
is that like last yearwhen we ran the survey,
there's actually a lot of variation
between all these different countries
that all sort of dealt with the pandemic
a little bit differently,
and because of how thepandemic was evolving
in each of those countries,
you saw these differentrates of working from home.
So working from home wasreally high in places
(21:01):
like the States and the UK,
and a lot of people in, say,
Australia were working from an office.
You saw a lot of variety andlike where people were working.
And this year it was actuallyremarkably consistent
between all of the places.
For the most part wherepeople were working tended
to be a hybrid of the office and the home.
(21:22):
And that sort of settling down
seems to me sort of beindicating that maybe this
is the new directionthat, like a lot of things
we tried during the pandemic,
all these countries are insort of different places,
and things sort of bit seem tobe reverting back into this,
I wouldn't say normal,
but like they're sayingto revert back into maybe
(21:45):
what is the new normal,to use an overused term.
- The modern workplace,
perhaps.- Yeah.
- Let's stop using COVID references.
One of the things I'm really interested
in hearing from you too, Daniel,
is about what we areseeing in terms of maybe
(22:06):
how we measure attendance and workplace.
You know, we're seeing as you say,
you know, a steady rise in presence.
Do you think there's any clues
as to how we might startto measure workplaces?
I mean, the old measureis how many head count
per square metre, andyou've got a density ratio.
When people aren't always there,
(22:27):
and I think we can safelysay the office isn't dead,
but maybe 9:00 to 5:00 is dead,
do we start measuring byamount of people present?
Often we talk about thelanguage of, you know,
workplace metrics isgoing to have to change
(22:47):
and continue to evolve,
because of what we'reall living through here.
Any clues as to wherewe're headed with that?
- Yeah, I think certainly you're seeing,
like during the pandemicthere was an acceleration
and adoption of technologyaround measuring things
like presence.
But I think also this questionof like how you measure
(23:08):
the utility of theworkplace goes back to maybe
that earlier pointabout like it's not just
about people sitting at desks,like just knocking out work,
that workplace has this other purpose,
and maybe before the pandemic that purpose
was almost implied or itwasn't explicitly stated,
and we just took it for granted
that people in an officewere doing the thing
(23:29):
that they needed to be doingto make the company operate.
And I think coming out of the pandemic,
the real kind of questionthat a lot of organisations
are grappling with is like,
what is the purpose of aworkplace in this organisation?
And I think really like to go back
to the sort of fundamental principles,
like by what you define thepurpose of the workplace as,
(23:52):
like that should be the thingthat leads to the metrics.
So if it is about people coming together
and having these shared experiences,
like maybe that should be the metric,
not the number of people are there,
but like the quality of the connections.
Or if it's aboutcreativity and making sure
that ideas are spreadacross the organisation,
like that should be the metric
and maybe not so much the square footage.
(24:14):
- It's fascinating, isn't it,
because the CFOs ofthe world still looking
for ways of, you know,
getting, as you saymore agency and utility
from their biggest, asidefrom their salary expense,
the biggest cost that anorganisation typically has
is its real estate costs,
and you know, how to getmore value out of that
(24:37):
is certainly the question of the time.
I'm fascinated by the idea of moving on
from Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 5:00.
I think that the survey shows
some fairly regularpatterns of attendance,
doesn't it, Daniel?
I think that's kind of become, as you say,
the new norm.
- Yeah, and I thinkeveryone's aware of this,
but attendance on Mondays and Fridays
(24:58):
is really just down ina lot of organisations,
and people, when they'rechoosing to come into the office,
they're tending to chooseto come in on Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Thursday.
And one thing that might have surprise,
well, it did surprise me from the data,
was just who wanted to work where.
So we asked both like individual employees
(25:21):
and managers what days theywanted to come into the office
and sort of how much timethey ideally want to spend
in the office on those days.
What you saw there wasthat individual employees
were actually quite polarisedin what they wanted.
They either wanted one or the other,
they wanted to come into the office
or they wanted to work at home.
When you look at managers,
(25:42):
they're actually theones that were most open
to spending part oftheir time in the office
and part of their timeat home in a single day.
And I thought that wasjust really fascinating,
'cause we think of managers
as wanting everyone to beback in the office with them
and to be there full-time.
And actually when you go
(26:03):
and talk to the managers themselves,
what they want is somethinga little bit different,
at least for themselves,maybe not for their employees.
- It's always been the way, hasn't it,
the white collars versus the blue collars,
the workers versus the bosses. (laughs)
Always a slightly different approach.
As we start to wrap this up, Daniel,
(26:26):
I am really fascinated bywhat you think we're gonna see
in 2023 survey, have you got any brave,
bold predictions for uson what we're gonna see?
- I wasn't prepared for that one, Domino.
(laughing together)
Careful at the end.
So I think the interesting partof doing the surveying work
(26:46):
is that we have done it nowfor three years in a row.
So we're starting to geta database of insights
on how people across the world are feeling
and behaving as itrelates to the workplace.
So for sure when we runthe survey next year,
we're gonna be able to benchmark,
like what was happening this year
against what was happening next year,
and I think those are gonnabe really interesting to see,
(27:08):
because a lot's gonna happenin the next year in terms of,
I think companies gonna have
to start making decisionsin the next year,
they've been holdingthings off for so long
that they're really gonna settle down.
So we'll see a lot of that coming
through in the data next year.
I think also, hopefullywe'll be able to expand
the survey out a little bit
and there's some other regions
(27:29):
that we've always been curious about
but we haven't surveyed yet.
So it'd be fun to do that too.
- I like that, we're workplace curious
in various regions of the world.
I'm really looking forwardto seeing, you know,
free food and great coffeeagain on the top of the list.
My prediction for next yearis that's not going anywhere.
(27:49):
But I'm really lookingforward to sharing the data
from this year's survey as we go through
the next 12 months with organisations
to really reinforce this amazingstatistic that we've got,
that more presence in the workplace leads
to greater engagement,greater levels of trust,
and a much higher feeling of belonging,
(28:11):
if you don't force people to do that
and give them choice and autonomy.
I think of all of theinformation we've been able
to glean out of the lastthree years worth of data,
that to me is absolute workplace gold,
and is the clue in my way of thinking,
or the holy grail, of howwe're gonna get through this
(28:32):
is choice, autonomy,
and creating magneticworkplace experiences
that people are really,really going to love.
Thank you so much, Daniel,
it's been so nice to talk to you.
- Thanks, Domino,
it's great talking with you.
- So if you guys wanna know more,
please feel free to email us
at insight@hassellstudio, one word, .com.
(28:54):
There's more greatepisodes coming your way,
so keep an ear out for those.
I'm Domino Rich, Hassel's commercial
and workplace sector leader,
and I've been talkingto Daniel Davis today,
our senior researcher.
Thanks heaps and keep an earout for the next episode, bye.
(gentle instrumental music)
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