There’s a big difference between needing to show up for work and actually wanting to show up for work. High living costs and ever-increasing professional demands are extending many workdays and sending stress levels off the charts. With three in four U.S. workers in less than optimal workplace environments, their struggle to work effectively has resulted in costly productivity losses, stifled innovation, and decreased worker engagement, according to Gensler’s Workplace Index.
The same study shows clearly that workplace density is on the rise while the square footage per person is getting smaller. But upgrading the square footage of your office space alone will do little to improve employee satisfaction – or productivity – if the physical workspace that engages our five senses isn’t utilized effectively.
Office amenities from wall art all the way to onsite gyms have a direct correlation with employee well-being. Employee well-being is directly tied to performance. As we’ll see, even incorporating incremental changes that employees value can better their relationship with the workplace.
Still, it’s important to remember that the office environment encompasses more than tangible amenities alone. Ahead we’ll explore how agents like choice and other shifts can help employers improve everything from office morale to talent acquisition.
Emboldened Choices
Innovative companies with high performing employees are the ones offering one particular key asset: choice. The more autonomy an employee has to choose when and where he or she works, the more likely they are to actually, well, work.
Thanks to an abundance of mobile technology and omni-connected IoT environments, taking your work remote around the office or around the world is a distinct possibility if not an outright necessity in some cases.
Millennials, having grown up on a steady diet of connectivity, have also shaped the workplace in this way. Many of them don’t know a world outside the wired one we live in. This makes their expectation for flexibility paramount to their productivity. Many are unaccustomed to a work life that requires them to be chained to a desk for eight hours and isn’t willing to settle for this version of the status quo.
Continue reading full article on Propmodo.
