Survey: Death of the 5-day work week? 85% of workers prefer some remote work

The work from home movement has been going strong for more than a decade now.

Remote workers who love it appreciate the freedom and flexibility. Some view it as a sign of respect from an employer that trusts them to remain professional in any setting. Others enjoy avoiding a lengthy commute.

But remote work doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Even office workers dream of working in their pajamas once in awhile. Companies are increasingly embracing policies that allow remote workers to come to the workplace sometimes and office employees to do their job from home on certain days.

Image shows findings from Density workplace experience survey

Support for such arrangements can be seen in the results of our recent workplace experience survey. We asked 100 workers for their preferences and learned that people who usually work in the office also want to work from home sometimes.

Specifically, we asked workers how often they would visit the office if their company fully embraced a work-from-anywhere policy.

An overwhelming 85% preferred not to come to the office everyday. The most popular response, chosen by 40% of respondents, was to go to the office “a couple of days a week.” But 15% say they would still come in five days per week, and a similar number (16%) would opt for “3-4 days a week.” Just 7% replied that they would “never” come in to the office, while 22% elected for “a couple of days per month.”

Companies that build out appealing spaces and smartly invest in the right amenities may be more likely to employ people who actually want to show up at the office everyday.

Interestingly, there seems to be a link between people’s desire to come to the office and how much they enjoy their workplace.

About one-third of employees who “strongly agree” with the statement “I am fully satisfied with the design and amenities of my office” replied that they would chose to come in 5 days a week regardless of company policy. By contrast, 20% of those who “strongly disagree” with this statement would only come in a couple of days per month, and around 12% of these respondents say they would never go to the office.

While this survey was limited in size, these findings could have important implications for workplace design. Companies that build out appealing spaces and smartly invest in the right amenities may be more likely to employ people who actually want to show up at the office everyday.

Remote work has increased by 140% since 2007 among non-self-employed workers.

Overall, these response shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been following workplace trends. The five-day work week might not be dead, but according to Global Workplace Analytics, more than one-third (37%) of knowledge workers now come into the office four or fewer times per week. In all, 43% of employed Americans occasionally work remotely, and remote work has increased by 140% since 2007 among non-self-employed workers.

But we could have guessed employees enjoy working from home. What do companies think?

Well, in fact, we continue to see evidence that remote work is great for both sides. A two-year study by Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom, for example, showed that workers at Shanghai travel agency Ctrip were much more productive at home. The company almost got an equivalent of an extra day of work per week from each employee.

The employees at the company also took fewer sick days and shorter breaks. Attrition fell by 50% among the work-from-home group. And Ctrip was even able to reduce office space, saving around $2,000 on rent per remote employee.

Another factor contributing to the rise of remote work is that it opens the talent pool. At Density, for example, we have used this as a tool to hire much-needed specialists. When the required skill that a company is seeking is not widely available in their local market, broadening the search to faraway locations can be the best — or even only — way to get the right person.

But there are some downsides as well. As we have seen in our survey, workers still do view the workplace as essential for collaboration and getting certain types of work done. And they do enjoy their overall job experience much more when their office is well designed and equipped with nice amenities. Losing out on that entirely could have negative consequences when it comes to certain projects or just overall morale.

This is one reason that some organizations have begun to look for ways to ensure that their culture and workplace collaboration can be encouraged.

One option that some have used is hosting more regular social and team-building events. While these can become tedious — or even loathed — if the execution is poor, a good work retreat can excellent for both employee bonding and encouraging deep conversations about the larger department goals that can get pushed to the back burner during the day-to-day grind of deadlines and project deliverables.

Other companies have gone digital. Some have started offering company “water cooler” Slack channels or Facebook-variant networks that allow people to share photos of their family, pets, vacations, or hobbies. CNN Business recently noted that “employees are randomly paired up once a week to hold a 30-minute video chat” at Zapier, a California-based tech company that maintains a majority remote workforce.

Such initiatives will never fully replicate face-to-face connections. But they can present a way for people to get know their coworkers a bit better despite seeing one another infrequently.

Ultimately, even though the two concepts may seem at odds, today’s employees want to both work from home and work in a good office environment.

Naturally, nobody can do both at the same time. But companies that are able to optimize their space as well as their remote work policies are the most likely to keep their employees happy and productive — no matter where the work is being accomplished.

Reimagining workplace design with Google’s Patrick Larvie

This spring, Density hosted a special event with Patrick Larvie, who has lead research teams at Google, Yahoo! and ISER, Brazil’s largest NGO. The event, ‘Rewriting the Rules on Workplace Design,’ was attended by over 60+ Bay area residents from companies like Adobe, Genentech, Gensler and WeWork.

Architecture is this fantastically circular world. We know good architecture because architects tell us when we see it.

In a Q+A session, Patrick drew on his 15 years of experience leading international research teams and his current role as the lead of user experience team for the group within Google responsible for its workplace. The session was moderated by Ari Kepnes, Director of Market Research of Density. Both Ari and Patrick are alums of a small liberal arts school, Sarah Lawrence College. They explored how workplaces require a multi-disciplinary approach to architecture and design.

To learn more, watch the video or read the interview below:

What is it going to take for the status quo to change?

I think that asking vastly different questions and completely rethinking the way we approach design is a big part of it. It starts with three questions: “What do I need my workplace to do?” “How can I know good design from bad?” and “What can I do to improve what I have?” These questions are very unusual to the way design contracts are written today. Typically, discussions are broad and thematic, and might be limited to meeting the fire code. This requires a deeper understanding of what people are trying to do and how the environments they work in are helping or hindering that.

Patrick Larvie presents on Workplace Design

Don’t ask, ‘What do you want around your desk? What do you want in your conference room?’

Can you give me an example of how to get that data?  

Don’t ask people what office they want, instead ask them about their most successful day. Ask them, “Can you tell me about a fantastic day when you were delighted to be at work? Tell me about that day from start to finish.” Listen to the qualities of that day and how you can apply them to the design of the environment. So, if I’m going to meet with a client, and I need to impress that client, then I need a place for the client to interact with the company. I probably want something that’s not just my desk.

Don’t ask, “What do you want around your desk? What do you want in your conference room?” Instead, ask “What do you do? Tell me about a day when you were really successful,” and then abstract what the space should be. Today we really do the opposite.   

Different employees have different perspectives on their perfect day. How can spaces be useful to more people?

When design firms engage, they typically they talk to one person about how things should be. I wouldn’t be afraid to ask this question to more people: “What do you do? Tell me about a day when you were really successful?” Unless someone does something totally different in a given environment, it’s unlikely that you will hear an infinite versions of what a successful day is like. My experience is that there are relatively few types, and that most of them can be served with a few principles, which are not the principles that have been used in the past.

Image of people sitting at Density event

How do you know good design from bad?

Architecture is this fantastically circular world. We know good architecture because architects tell us when we see it. They give each other prizes. And one of my favorite genres of architecture failure is the airport.

One example of this is Terminal 4 in Madrid. It’s a beautiful, soaring building, with giant expanses of space and color.It takes 15 minutes to get from the city center to the airport, but it takes 35 minutes to get from the check-in counter to a gate. That’s a failure.

A successful airport is one where people get where they need to go. It shouldn’t take longer to get from the check-in counter to the gate than it takes to get from the center of the city to the airport. This is a terminal that won multiple prizes. It’s a beautiful airport, and you’ll experience that beauty because you’ll be lost. It’s very difficult to navigate. If I were the operator of that airport, I’d say, “you are not done until people can get to their gate in under 20 minutes.”

In the workplace, what is the criteria for success?

The trick is having clear criteria for filtering signal from noise. If my job requires extended periods of concentration and focus. I can’t achieve extended periods of concentration and focus, then that workplace has failed.

Ask them “What are you trying to do?” If what you’re trying to do is write a novel, and to write that you need absolute peace and quiet, I would say, “it seems like this environment is not set up for you.”

There’s no environment that people love all the time. But you can ask, “Is there some reasonable level that 85% of the time you get what you need done?” “How often do you have to move because the air conditioning is coming down on your head?” “How do you have to move people the people around you are too loud?” I’d get a little more fine-grained with my questions.

There’s the inability to learn. What if you didn’t disengage with a design firm the day you opened? What if you don’t cut the ribbon and cut ties?

I was shocked to hear about the lack of feedback between architects and the people who use buildings.

It’s absolutely shocking. It shouldn’t be the case. When we think about design and construction, one of the dirty secrets is that today it’s 50% less efficient than it was in 1968, and what drives that is constant customization and small scale projects. There’s the inability to learn. What if you didn’t disengage with a design firm the day you opened? What if you don’t cut the ribbon and cut ties? You could say, “I’d like you to run that building until people are able to do what they need to do?” There are lots of ways we could set requirements and say, “Here are some functional goals we’d really like to meet, in partnership.” That’s the way we close that feedback loop. Closing that loop is what keeps me employed. It’s the design gap that requires some research.

Networking at Density HQ event

What about the rise of WeWork and the idea of shared spaces? I think that is one answer to what you’re describing, providing workplace as a service.

I admire WeWork. The idea of providing workplace as a service rather than a one-off project is a really interesting idea. I am fascinated and applaud their growth. Where I would love to close the loop is, how can they provide spaces that makes their clients successful? From the perspective of environmental design, what fosters success? Do we have to really provide the same desk and the same filing cabinet for everybody? I am curious to know the answer to that. It’s a question that is sort of the secret sauce.

Stop thinking about design projects as things that are cataclysmic, happen once every ten years and then you hope for the best.  

I read that Google is planning to spend $13B this year on new US data centers and offices. How do you think about improving what you have even when you’re at a place like Google?

I’ve seen a lot of situations, both where I work now, and where I’ve worked before, wherein people commission very large design projects that are led by an aesthetic ideal or the need to have more technology. They’re failing to ask these really basic questions. So, I think, if I were in any company, I would stop thinking about workplace as just as cost. It is a cost, and we don’t want to light money on fire.

But, I would start to think about what I want that cost to do for me. I’m paying money, so what do I want in exchange for it? If I don’t know what I get in exchange, then I have no idea whether I am spending too much or too little. You have to have some clear standard of performance and you have to be able to know if you’re not meeting your standards.

You should work with a design partner that can give you some ideas about how to tweak the design. The idea that design projects are done, then they age and decay until you do the next one, doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Why shouldn’t we be constantly tweaking what we do? I would think about workplace in that way. If I was at a company of any scale, I would stop thinking about design projects as things that are cataclysmic, happen once every ten years and then you hope for the best.  

That’s why I’m a fan of Density. This is part of an ecosystem that can help us move forward

At Density, we measure how space is used. There’s a feedback loop between architecture and the people who use the space. It’s 2019, and we seem to be finally understanding how people are using and interacting with physical space.

I agree. That’s why I’m a fan of Density. This is part of an ecosystem that can help us move forward without thinking of design as always monumental, of feeding the vanity of the people who commission it. Instead, it can be something that serves the needs of the people who are impacted by it. I’m a big fan of Density because it’s actually anonymous and the privacy implications of this are enormous. If you combine how many people are in which spaces and what they’re doing, I think that’s a very powerful combination.  

We have a space problem: Benchmarks reveal $150 billion in office waste

According to Gensler, 83% of corporate real estate executives rank space utilization as the key metric for making workplace decisions. As more companies collect space utilization data, benchmarking across regions, industries and space types is now possible. We compiled utilization benchmarks from JLL, CBRE and Density’s own clients to identify patterns across space utilization. Here’s what we found:

1. Offices around the world are (still) empty

Across all regions, only 13% of organizations utilize their space more than 80% of the time. 37% of workplaces globally were empty during any given workday in 2018. A 2015 report from CBRE shared similar utilization rates globally: 40% of all office space was empty. That’s equal to $150 billion dollars in unused space.

2. Utilization rates vary by industry

Public sector and non-profit workplaces have the highest utilization rates, with 80% and 95% respectively. They tend to have older buildings with higher density. Offices for telecom/utilities and financial services are used the least, and are empty for 50% of an average workday.

3. Meeting rooms signal a massive opportunity

The global average meeting room utilization is just 30%. When meetings rooms are in use, only 40% of seats are occupied. Most organizations build meeting rooms for six people, but most meetings are held by two or three people.

4. Private space means unused space

A popular perk for raising through the ranks of an organization used to be a private office. But organizations are beginning to rethink private offices, which are unoccupied 77% of the workday.

It’s clear that workplaces today are massively underutilized. With accurate data, it’s possible to do the impossible: reduce your portfolio footprint while at the same time enhancing the employee experience. Workplaces are increasingly allotting 150 sq ft per person, 33% less than 225 sq ft in 2010. More companies are introducing mobility programs that eliminate assigned desks and designated personal space. Policies like “hotelling” and “hot desking” policies  provide employees access to space on an as-needed basis. The cost savings are clear: if companies were to improve their utilization of space, they would save hundreds of thousands of dollars per floor.

Taken to an extreme, squeezing more employees into fewer square feet is counterproductive. No one wants to work in an overcrowded office, and densification for the sake of space savings alone leads to unhappy workers.

To illustrate, my co-workers, Adam, Robb and I ran a two minute experiment to see how long we could work in a 16-square foot phone booth built for 1 person. (Turns out, this is less than ideal working environment…)

Image of space utilization problem
Optimizing for employee density isn’t the answer. Here’s why 🙂

Improving space utilization requires a deep understanding of how individuals at a company use their current office, and a workplace strategy tailored to their own needs. So, while global utilization benchmarks prove there is industry-wide opportunities to eliminate wasted space, company-specific space utilization data is required to make an office suited for the people who use it.

Bloated corporate real estate portfolio? Here’s what to do next

We all know space is a valuable asset, but having too much of a good thing can be bad for business. If you suspect you have too much space allocated in your corporate real estate portfolio, chances are, you probably do… But to make your sneaking suspicion actionable, first you need data.

Whether you use manual counts, estimates, or platforms like Density, the first step is to quantify how much space is underutilized. With that done, you have the following options:

What to do with underutilized space.
Options for improving space utilization, adapted from Gensler’s research

1. Stay and pay

It’s not always possible to make changes to a real estate stack, especially if you’re locked into a long-term lease. No one likes this option, but companies are often left with no other option but to stay for the remainder of the lease. But it doesn’t just stop there—this is a great time to kick off a space utilization data initiative. Capturing data today to plan for future needs not only benefits the company, it positions you and your team as action-oriented leaders in the business.

2. Relocate

Utilization data helps inform site selection during a relocation. With accurate utilization data, your can select the right amount of space with the right mix of space types. Example: if you know your six person conference rooms are used by one person for more than 50% of the time, you can select a new space that has more phone booths and smaller meeting rooms types.

3. Consolidate

Knowing how space is used makes it easy to dispose of underutilized resources. For example, a Fortune 500 needed to decide how many floors to sublease during a redesign. They found they were only using 30% of the building, and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by subleasing. The goal isn’t to densify space at the expense of employees, but to find an optimal amount of real estate by providing only the types of spaces that employees actually use.

4.  Enhance environment

Organizations typically enhance the workplace environment by adding amenities, adjusting furnishings and changing room sizes. Conference rooms are one of the clearest opportunities for room redesign. Most meetings are two or three people, but most conference rooms are designed for six. Companies use utilization data on their own conference rooms to allocate the right mix of space sizes for their employees needs. At Density, we were able to redesign a conference room in just minutes to increase utilization by 246%.

5. Change policies

Companies are adopting new policies that give employees access to a variety of spaces, but no designated desk. Unlike a traditional office, activity-based work introduces unassigned seating. Sometimes called “hotelling” or “hot desking,” the concept is that employees can use different spaces throughout the day for different work patterns.

Whether you’re planning for future projects or improving your existing spaces, utilization data specific to your own employees makes for better decisions. Matt Harris, Head of Workplace Technology at Envoy, explains, “When we think about a workplace that works, we think about the need to be able to responsive [to employees] in the moment.”

Survey: 66% of workers see the office primarily as a place for collaboration

To lure and retain the best talent, companies today are investing more effort — and money — in designing sleek workplaces full of amenities. In a recent survey from CBRE, 81% of workplace teams rank amenities as the most important factor for improving employee experience. It’s clear C-level leaders understand the value of creating desirable workplaces. Less clear is whether employees are actually swayed by all the bells and whistles—dog-friendly spaces, spa water, and meditation rooms.

We got to thinking: Does a well-designed, amenity-filled workplace motivate employees to work more, stay home less and experience greater fulfillment in their job? To better understand this question, we recently conducted our own workplace experience survey.

Survey results for Density's workplace experience survey 2019
Survey results from a question in Density’s workplace experience survey

There’s good news for employers that have splurged on nice digs: 55% of those surveyed agree with the statement, “my company’s office design and amenities had a positive impact on my decision to accept my job offer.” Within this majority, 13% even said that they “strongly agree.” The remaining 45% disagreed with the statement, including 14% who “strongly disagree.”

55% of those surveyed agree with the statement, ‘my company’s office design and amenities had a positive impact on my decision to accept my job offer.’

The return on investment became less clear when we delved deeper and asked people how they ultimately view the function of their workplace. What purpose does an office really serve?

More than anything, the surveyed workers said they view their office environment as a place for in-person collaboration (66% of respondents) and socializing with coworkers (57%). We all know the feeling of having a breakthrough conversation in person or spending face time with a coworker who works in a different department.

Two-thirds (66%) also reported that they view the office as “an environment for completing focused work,” suggesting that they view their workplace much the same as their parents may have decades ago. While cubicles may have fallen out of favor, it’s clear that people still seek space and time to work in a focused manner.

Perks still matter, however: nearly one-third (32%) say they do enjoy the available amenities and around one-fifth of workers (21%) see the offices as an environment for recruiting new talent.

To get a wider breadth of responses, we also allowed those surveyed to provide freeform feedback. One person said that “my office is an environment for making clients feel comfortable,” while two others see it as “an encouraging environment” and a “safe work space.” Finally, and most troublingly, one respondent said: “My office is a raucous, noisy environment.”

The results seen here are certainly not conclusive. We surveyed just 100 people, and different companies in different locations with different cultures may find that their employees love or hate their work environment to varying degrees.

How do your workers actually feel about coming to work? What are the main reasons they value being there in person compared to working remotely?

Executives would be wise to try to take something away from these results, however. And more than anything, that lesson should be to start asking questions.

How do your workers actually feel about coming to work? What are the main reasons they value being there in person compared to working remotely? Are there deficiencies in the environment that a significant number of people can pinpoint? What amenities that you offer are universally praised?

By asking the right questions, you can take the guesswork out of office design and get much greater insight into what the most important members of your organization really want.

A 5-minute meeting room redesign boosted utilization by 246%

The importance of iteration

Historically, workplaces haven’t been designed in an iterative way. Corporate real estate teams often sign 20-year leases with design elements that remain static for what can seem like forever.

Image from the movie, Office Space, 20th Century Fox, 1999

That’s changing. With new office options like WeWork, leases are shorter term and workplace design is increasingly flexible. In that spirit, we decided to mix it up a bit at our HQ in San Francisco.

A homegrown experiment

All good workplace experiments begin with observation. You hear rumblings that employees can’t find a room to meet, but as far as you can tell, conference rooms are almost always available. That beautiful lounge you invested in rarely looks full… The list goes on.

The hunch

In our case, we began with a hunch: one of our meeting rooms appeared chronically empty, but we had no idea how often or why. We figured some design and layout changes may encourage more people to use it.

Workplace utilization data FTW

With the average San Francisco rent at $80 per square foot, we were wasting $1,000 a month on just one room.

To get a baseline understanding of how often the room was used, we pulled a utilization report from our Density dashboard. The Density dashboard leverages data from Density’s people counting system to show how many people visited a space at any given time.

Utilization patterns in the meeting room from Density’s dashboard September 30th-October 31st

What we saw confirmed our observation: this room was significantly underutilized. The room was designed for four people, but in a typical workday, the room was empty or used by just one person for 96% percent of the workday. With the average San Francisco rent at $80 per square foot, we were wasting $1,000 a month on just one room.  

The makeover

It was clear we had work to do. Like most conference rooms, the space was designed for video conferencing. We wanted to incorporate design elements that would also encourage in-person group meetings.

Image of Meeting Room at Density Offices Before Redesign
Image of underutilized meeting room at Density’s SF Headquarters before the makeover

Based on a tip from our friends at Knoll, we believed that informal, lounge furnishing would encourage more than two people to use the space at a time. We brought in furnishings that were in other lounge areas of the office, including a plant, lamp and soft seating.

Image of Meeting Room After Redesign Utilization
Image of meeting room at Density’s SF Headquarters after the makeover

The Verdict

“It’s really nice in there, I love it!”

– Matt Merati, Density employee

We explained to our coworkers that we changed the design of the room and that it was available as a resource for them to use. Just days after the announcement, utilization patterns dramatically changed.

Image of Density dashboard showing total activity in the meeting room
Density data shows an increase in use dramatically after the makeover on February 25th.

To gather more data, we extended the study. After one month, the trend continued to show people really liked the new space design.

Image of Density Dashboard After the Meeting Room Redesign
Utilization patterns in the meeting room from Density’s dashboard February 28th-March 31

The room became a clear favorite for three to four person meetings. An employee on the marketing team, Dave Farah, explained that meetings held in the room were more relaxed, and it seemed easier to listen to others. Matt Merati, who works on the Density algorithm team, exclaimed, “It’s really nice in there, I love it!” One quarter after the makeover, we considered the experiment a success. It had 246% more visits in the past quarter than in the previous quarter.

Takeaways

While limited in scope to just one room, our exercise illustrates some important points for the evolving nature of workplace design.

  1. Adopting an iterative, scientific mindset for testing workplace design doesn’t need to be overly complex. It can start small and expand from there. In our case, we started with room and one hypothesis.
  2. Different design elements encourage different employee behaviors. In our case, employees said they enjoyed more in-person collaboration compared to when the space was set up for a conference room.
  3. Changing design doesn’t mean an expensive overhaul. It can be as simple as adjusting furnishings.
  4. A design that works well at one company, won’t necessarily work at yours. Keys for success: access to accurate utilization data and a willingness to experiment and learn.
  5. Utilization data should complement, not replace, employee feedback. It’s always important to listen to employees.