Should reward leaders spruce up offices to draw back workers?

As employees grow to enjoy the benefits of working from home, getting them back into the office is becoming a trickier task for reward leaders.

For example, in 2020 a study by Growmotely found that 97% of employees don’t want to return to the office full-time, while separate research from Finder.com revealed the several perks employees appreciate while working remotely, from saving money on commuting to being more productive.

Despite this, CEO of insurer Admiral, Cristina Nestares, has claimed that offices must be more attractive for staff to “make an effort, commute, come to the office”.

According to the BBC, Nestares believes that city centre offices are going to be “more important than ever” for businesses operating hybrid models.

Reflecting on the firm’s own workforce, Nestares shared that throughout lockdown home working “was tough and it did cause some problems” for its younger employees.

However, now the business is offering a mix of home working and office working to its staff at company sites in Cardiff, Swansea and Newport.

But the CEO is hopeful that employees will make the effort and commute into the office. She explained: “We are going to ask our staff, a lot of whom are very comfortable working from home, we are going to say: ‘Make an effort, commute, come to the office’.”

She added that city centre offices have “always been important – location, location, location – but it is going to be even more so in the future”.

To encourage staff to travel, Admiral is looking to introduce bookable desks, break-out areas and re-designed floors into its company’s headquarters in Cardiff.

“We want the office experience to be fantastic, in the office and outside,” she continued.

Other businesses have also followed Nestares notion regards office space, as Nici Bush, global vice-president of workplace transformation at consumer foods group Mars, previously shared that flexibility needs to be ingrained into workplaces.

“What you want to do is not the same throughout the whole day,” she explained to the Financial Times.

She pointed out that offices need to have places to relax and have coffee, as well as areas for more focussed work and spaces for hybrid meetings.

Similarly, John Mulqueen, head of offices for Europe, Middle East and Africa at property group CBRE Global Investors, believes that offices need to “provide a hook” to draw employees back.

Mulqueen concluded: “You can’t expect to force people back to the office, you have to provide a hook.”

Have you or will you be considering an update to your office space? Contact jburke@shardfinancialmedia.com to share more.