In March 2020, America’s workforce went virtual, and what started as a two-week effort to flatten the curve turned into many workers’ permanent realities. Over a year later, most employees do not want to give up their home offices and the flexibility that comes with that arrangement. The issue is that now that the pandemic era is coming to an end, many employers are beckoning their employees to offices, but those employees want changes, and they’re ready to leverage their careers to get it.
While much of this change is existential adjustments to office culture, there is also a significant portion that lies in the building structure. While employees are making these demands to their employers, the changes to office spaces will be the responsibility of building managers and developers and will impact the commercial construction sector. A new survey report titled “The Case for Office Space: How Buildings Need to Change to Suit a Climate-Conscious, COVID-Weary Workforce” shows employees are coming to the table with strong convictions for what the next era of in-person work should look like—including the buildings they work in.
Sunny Home Offices Beat Cubicles
The survey found that remote work works. A majority of decision-makers (85%) and employees (79%) believe that company productivity has gone unharmed or even improved since working from home, negating a perceived need for supervision and shared space for employees to do their jobs. Employees have developed a new sense of health, and 57% of employees believe that the offices they once frequented had a detrimental effect on their physical and mental health.
Most cited concerns for their mental well-being, a far more existential concern than just improved sanitation can fix. Hand-in-hand with their mental health, nearly 40% employees said that their primary health concern was a lack of natural light.
Retrofitting existing offices with windows is not something that executives can do overnight, or at all in some cases. This new demand for more natural light access will translate into more work for the commercial construction sector, inducing creative problem-solving to make meaningful changes and meet the demands of the newly empowered workforce. In instances where retrofitting is not an option, these demands could translate as far as new building projects, bringing the office desired by employees, and in high demand by their executives, to life.
Healthy and Sustainable Offices
Employees are not so stubborn as to never return, but they are demanding change to do so. Without changes to the office being made, many employees are looking for an out. Employees said they would consider leaving their job if their company did not meet their expectations. In an economy with more jobs open than workers can fill, companies have to figure out how to meet their employees where they are.
Among employees’ wants and needs, there is a glaring contradiction. While employees emphatically demand more windows, they also demand more sustainability measures—83% of employees believe the climate plays a direct role in their individual health, and they want their companies to take this seriously. Windows are historically unsustainable; from glass production to excess heat and energy loss, they are less than green. Although 66% of employees want their company to address renewable energy concerns in their organization, they will not compromise on their demand for windows.
As the construction industry rebounds after 2020’s year of losses, construction professionals will be tasked with sourcing creative solutions to this building conundrum. How can windows be sustainable? Where can natural light access and energy conservation intersect? As many companies begin to explore this exact juncture, construction professionals would be remiss not to address this with clients in the preconstruction phase.
The Office of the Future
Whereas once c-suite executives made facility decisions based on their own wants and needs, they now must listen to employees’ wants and needs first to prevent economic fallout and costly attrition. Prior to the pandemic, the commercial construction industry needed only to concern itself with the wants of developers and tenants. Now, creative construction professionals must address the concerns of newly empowered workers.
The data in this report reveals an inverted power pyramid—employees are leveraging their power, many for the first time, for meaningful changes to their health and careers. While the changes to the office are not as simple as making sure surfaces are properly sanitized, it is in the best interest of business leaders to reexamine their existing offices and retrofit them or find new offices that meet employee expectations. In turn, construction professionals must prepare themselves for rising demand in creative retrofitting projects and new builds.
