The flexibility that sprouted from the womb of telecommuting in the last two years cannot and should not be diluted like sugar with the return of employees to the office. After enjoying greater flexibility thanks to the “home office”, workers want to continue benefiting from that flexibility in the office, where companies must necessarily implement changes to make it a truly attractive place for the workforce. These are some of the conclusions of a recent study undertaken in Germany by Trendence.
While many employees are happy to return to the office, they want more freedom in organizing their work schedule there.
58% of workers want to return to work in the office, but at the same time 48.3% also want to have the power to work from home when necessary.
“In the workplace of the future, employees aspire to a high degree of pragmatism. Generally speaking, they want to work in the office, but they also want to be able to work from home without giving too much notice. This is a big difference from the pre-pandemic era, when remote work was the exception to the norm,” explains Robindro Ullah, director of Trendence.
What motivates employees the most when it comes to returning to the office is social contacts. 43% of workers miss the personal exchange of views with other colleagues and 41.7% also miss teamwork.
Flexibility is a “must” for employees on their return to the office
However, it should be noted that in the office the employee wishes to be able to work in a concentrated manner (24.9%) and also enjoy good ergonomic conditions (23.3%).
As many people have been working more independently from home in the last 24 months, many workers have ended up adopting more flexible hours as well. Today, 42.6% of employees freely decide when to start working. 39.3% also decide when to finish their working day and 36.2% choose how many hours they are going to work per week.
From the Trendence report, it can be deduced, on the other hand, that the vaunted digitization emerges more in the “home office” than in the office. Thanks to teleworking, the use of tools focused on video calls has skyrocketed from 27.6% to 60%. And the use of instant messaging applications has also grown from 10% to 34.3% with the invaluable help of the “home office”.
73.2% of workers report their satisfaction with their current employer after two years of the pandemic, but this does not necessarily translate into more loyalty. Three quarters of the employees consulted are willing to change jobs. In fact, 35% are already contacting other companies, 13.2% are looking intensively for new professional opportunities and 23.6% are looking for work only occasionally.
The willingness to change jobs is particularly pronounced among the more technical professions, where only 14% rule out a job change.
More than two-thirds of employees cite salary as their main motivation for finding a new job. And more than a third seek higher doses of conciliation. In fact, 24.6% of workers aspire to have a working week of just four days.
