Workplace Survey Report 2017 - senion.com · Senion Workplace Survey 2017 © 2017 Senion 4 The use...

Senion Workplace Survey 2017

© 2017 Senion 1

SENION

Office Workplace Survey 2017


© 2017 Senion 2

In offices all over the world, the ways in which work gets done are constantly

evolving. Smartphones, laptops, video conferencing, and cloud based

workspaces have all impacted the everyday office life. The attitude toward work

is another factor fuelling this shift.

If we were to sum up this evolution in one word it would be flexibility; flexible

hours, flexible teams, flexible work arrangements.

As more and more companies are opting for a more agile and dynamic work

environment to increase productivity and optimize their real-estate footprint,

new challenges are emerging.

In the light of this, we conducted this survey of office workers to understand

their attitudes toward some of the challenges in the modern workplace, and

how new workplace policies like hotdesking are impacting office workers.


© 2017 Senion 3

BACKGROUND

Seating – permanent, hot desk or hybrid? Desk sharing, or hot desking, was popularized during the 90’s but didn’t exactly turn out to be the

home run most had hoped for. Two decades later, hot desking is once again a topic among facility

managers globally. So how far have we come in terms of adopting agile workplaces?

An interesting insight is that, while compulsory hot desking is still a rare practice, a considerable

number of workplaces rely on an assigned / hot desk hybrid approach with mixed seating

options. The share of workplaces with compulsory hot desking is roughly the same for different

workplace sizes, however, larger workplaces (5000+ employees) are using the hybrid approach to

a higher extent than smaller workplaces, as is visible in the chart above.

501–1000

1,001-5000

5,001+

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Seating policies in relation to workplace size

Permanent seating Hot desking Both

PERMANENT SEATING Each employee has his or her own assigned desk.

HOT DESKING No assigned desks – sit wherever you prefer. Sometimes called hoteling.

HYBRID (BOTH) A combination of assigned and unassigned desks.


© 2017 Senion 4

The use of hot desking is arguably most common in the 18–29 age span, with 17% of young office

workers using fully agile seating. When including hybrid seating, almost 50% of young office

workers work in fully or semi-agile workplaces. A possible explanation is that younger

professionals to a higher extent prefer workplaces with flexible work arrangements.

When it comes to how the desks are assigned, the most widespread practice is to let employees

find a place themselves.

As more than half of the respondents are required to find a desk themselves, its apparent that

improvements can be made to take burden off of the employees and assist them in finding places

to work.

Age 18-29

Age 30-44

Age 45-59

Age 60+

0% 5% 10% 15% 20%

Hot desking: A generational trend

Young office workers are more likely to work in hot desking workplaces.

Find it yourself

Assigned in advance

Office staff assists in locating seating

Custom app or reservation program

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

First come, first served

Most common ways of assigning seats in workplaces with hotdesking


© 2017 Senion 5

CHALLENGES

Finding desks, colleagues and meeting rooms As companies adopt more agile work arrangements, a commonly voiced issue is that of locating

colleagues, or available spaces to meet or work. When everyone is free to sit wherever they want

– how does one find a colleague? To understand better the magnitude of these issues we probed

the office workers on what they spend excessive time on.

Conference rooms

Colleagues

Available desks

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Finding colleagues and conference rooms

Amount of office workers spending excessive time locating each destination.


© 2017 Senion 6

Out of the three destinations (desks, colleagues and conference rooms), most people reported

spending time finding a conference room and colleagues – whereas finding a desk seems like a

lesser problem.

However, when comparing different seating policies, it’s apparent that employees in workplaces

with agile seating spend significantly more time looking for colleagues and available desks, as

seen in the chart below.

It seems as the more agile a workplace is, the problems of finding colleagues, and locating

available desks grows with the agility. An interesting take-away is that even in workplacese with

traditional permanent seating, the issue of finding colleagues is considerable.

Available desks

Conference rooms

Colleagues

Permanent desk Both Hot desk0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Office seating policy

Finding your way

Amount of office workers spending excessive time locating each destination


© 2017 Senion 7

More than half of office workers report they spend time each week on finding an available

conference room – but what is the experience in doing so? When asked what the experience in

finding a conference room, it turns out that almost half of the respondents found it time

consuming, whereas roughly 40% found it generally easy.

Why is it time consuming? Although every office is unique in its own way, there are a few recurring

themes that emerge in the responses:

• No shows / overbooking

• Not enough space

• Wayfinding problems

That almost half of all respondents reported that they waste time on finding available conference

rooms is an issue to address. Not only does it lead to wasted time, but also curbed productivity,

as highlighted by some respondents:

We can never do anything at the spur of the moment here, everything has to be planned ahead just so

we can have a conference room

u See the appendix for more quotes from respondents on this topic.

Time consuming

Generally easy

0% 20% 40% 60%

Time consuming to find places to meet

Reported experience in finding a conference room


© 2017 Senion 8

When it comes to locating colleagues, a significant number of the office workers (37%) agreed it

was time consuming as well. Almost half of the large offices (5.000+ employees) employ fully or

semi-agile seating policies. Locating a colleague in a large office can be tricky as it is, and when

employees are free to sit wherever they desire, this problem is likely to grow with size and

complexity of the workplace.

Time consuming

Generally easy

0% 20% 40% 60%

One in three find it time consuming to locate colleagues

Reported experience in finding a colleague

Every floor is a new adventure to find out where meetings are or where colleagues are located. – Respondent from a 5000+ employee office


© 2017 Senion 9

Young office workers spend more time searching the office for rooms, desks and colleagues. A

possible explanation is that young workers are more frequently working in fully or semi-agile

workplaces – where these situations can be amplified.

Less than 30 minutes

30 minutes per week

45 minutes per week

60 minutes per week

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Time spent per week searching for available conference rooms, desks and colleagues

Age 18 - 29

Age 30+

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Young workers spend more time locating available rooms, desks and colleagues

Less than 30 minutes 30 minutes 45 minutes 60 minutes


© 2017 Senion 10

Occupancy – perceived and real An important measure for facility management is the workplace utilization rate. Companies are

using metrics on workplace utilization to make informed decisions on right-sizing their corporate

portfolio.

In our study, the average office worker perceived their workplace occupancy, or utilization rate to

be 83%. However, previous studies have shown that most corporate offices operate on a

utilization rate around 60%. There appears to be a discrepancy between the actual occupancy

and the impression that office workers get.

Measuring occupancy more reliably, and relaying this information to the employees can both

improve the actual utilization as well as reduce the feeling that the workplace is over crowded.

Avg. Perceived occupancy

Avg. Actual occupancy

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Workplaces appear more crowded than they are

Occupied Available

Utilization rates by Industry

FINANCIAL SERVICES 30–90%

HEALTHCARE 60–69%

INDUSTRIAL 50–79%

INSURANCE 80–89%

PHARMACEUTICALS 50–59%

TECHNOLOGY 30–90%


© 2017 Senion 11

About the survey The data for this research was gathered in partnership with SurveyMonkey. The survey was

carried out during October 2017, and had a total of 358 respondents.

The respondents were limited to US residents who work part-time or full time in offices larger

than 500 employees.


© 2017 Senion 12

Appendix The table below highlights free form responses from the respondents, with regards to finding

places to meet with colleagues.

THEME RESPONDENT QUOTE

No shows / overbooking “We manage our conference rooms through Outlook, and even though a conference room appears to be booked, it's often empty when you walk by.”

No shows / overbooking “Some people schedule a conference for every day of the week for several months - just in case they may have a meeting.”

No shows / overbooking “The problem here is people schedule recurring meetings, then the meeting goes away, but they never free up the room. Scheduling is done via Microsoft Outlook”

No shows / overbooking “Part of the problem is that people don't cancel their reservations when they aren't using the room so that blocks the room on the room calendars.”

No shows /overbooking “Sometimes conference rooms are locked, even when empty”

Not enough space “We can never do anything spur of the moment here, everything has to be planned out so we can have a conference room”

Not enough space “We just need more conference rooms”

Not enough space “There’s not enough space in this building to accommodate all of the meetings”

Not enough space “The challenge is we do not have enough conference rooms. Locating them is not difficult, finding one that is not already booked is the challenge.”

Not enough space “There aren’t that many conference room and so we need to call for them weeks before the meetings”

Wayfinding problems “Every floor is a new adventure to find out where meetings are or where colleagues are located. Some type of indoor map app would be awesome.”


© 2017 Senion 13

Wayfinding problems “It’s a pain to remember the conference room numbers. Additionally, the large conference rooms are in high demand.”

Wayfinding problems “We don't use enough technology to use the resources we have. It's too many steps to find a conference room, video conferencing is not available, etc.”

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