I think it depends. If you are a call center worker or administrative person who can truly do your job from anywhere, you can also use any random desk. But what is the point if you are equally productive?
On the contrary, knowledge workers with design materials, white boards and prototypes need a designated, and sometimes secure, space to store things. Coincidentally this type of work often benefits from occasional person collaboration.
While it may be tempting for companies to reduce costs and not provide assigned spaces, they are working counter to what provides the best working environment for employees. Forcing heads down folks to come into an office to sit at a random desk is the most suboptimal use of resources possible.
Interesting to consider this statistic about decreasing office space alongside recent headlines about increasing RTO mandates. It appears contradictory, but I suppose it could show a divide between companies
The trend data says that most firms aren’t doing a 5 day office. It’s very much outlier firms. Even parts of Amazon (European offices, Twitch) have said they can’t implement the 5 day return. Most firms doing a RTO push (like Asda above) are fighting for a 3 day return which is consistent with the Leesman data here.
It's a challenge, for sure. If your entire workforce want to attend Tue-Thu then you can't shrink footprint much. My company - which did contract floorspace post-Covid lockdowns - tries saying "you need to come in Mondays and Fridays if you can't find space on busy days". That goes down as well as you'd expect 😕
I think it depends. If you are a call center worker or administrative person who can truly do your job from anywhere, you can also use any random desk. But what is the point if you are equally productive?
On the contrary, knowledge workers with design materials, white boards and prototypes need a designated, and sometimes secure, space to store things. Coincidentally this type of work often benefits from occasional person collaboration.
While it may be tempting for companies to reduce costs and not provide assigned spaces, they are working counter to what provides the best working environment for employees. Forcing heads down folks to come into an office to sit at a random desk is the most suboptimal use of resources possible.
Interesting to consider this statistic about decreasing office space alongside recent headlines about increasing RTO mandates. It appears contradictory, but I suppose it could show a divide between companies
The trend data says that most firms aren’t doing a 5 day office. It’s very much outlier firms. Even parts of Amazon (European offices, Twitch) have said they can’t implement the 5 day return. Most firms doing a RTO push (like Asda above) are fighting for a 3 day return which is consistent with the Leesman data here.
It's a challenge, for sure. If your entire workforce want to attend Tue-Thu then you can't shrink footprint much. My company - which did contract floorspace post-Covid lockdowns - tries saying "you need to come in Mondays and Fridays if you can't find space on busy days". That goes down as well as you'd expect 😕