We have seen the role of offices for businesses change significantly over the years. In the most recent years, businesses and their employees have grappled with the importance and necessity of an office unit, especially with the rise in the use of technology, and accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns.
There are obvious pros and cons to both working in the office and working remotely or from home, and the majority of businesses and organisations appear to have opted for a hybrid model, allowing them to downsize their commercial unit, whilst keeping a base that they are centred around.
For businesses that have been looking to attract more of their employees back into the office, more often, we have seen changes for office units in that more potential tenants are looking for spaces with home comforts, or unique opportunities – breakout and relaxation rooms, gyms, and spaces for collaboration or co-working.
As much as working from home can be much more convenient for employees, not to mention saving money on transport and saving time on commuting, there are, of course, many benefits to being on the premises. Businesses have started to look into what it is that could encourage employees to go back and spend more time in the office. Whilst collaboration can be important, so can building relationships between the employees, and being in an office, amongst other employees, can play an important part in shaping the culture of a company.
What Brings Employees to the Office in 2025?
In the past few years, businesses have looked to bring the home comforts to the office, in an attempt to compete with being at home. New research, however, shows that this does not necessarily have the power that it was once thought to have had. Of course, it can help, but it is not the main reason for employees to consider physically going into the office instead of staying at home.
In fact, there are other elements that are more important to employees when it comes to attracting them back to work in the office, and it is centred around productivity.
Productivity not Perks
Productivity is at the core of what is making employees go into the office in 2025. Instead of trying to compete with the ‘perks’ of working at home, it seems that employees are looking for offices to be the place that can really boost productivity.
One of the main factors is technology. Having Wi Fi that is better than at home, or indeed being able to have face-to-face communication, printers, and computers, all enable high levels of productivity, which appears to be the key to attracting employees into the office unit. Creating the conditions that enable employees to work and be as productive as possible is very important to them. It seems that they are thinking that if they are making the effort to go into the office, they need to be rewarded with the ability to be as productive as possible.
Collaboration and Focus
We learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic that collaborative working can really suffer when participants are not all in the same room. Until now, technology does not seem to have created an authentic virtual version of sitting together and bouncing ideas off each other, carrying out some training, having a quick chat when passing by someone’s desk, or other collaborative working.
This is a major reason why employees want to go into the office, and it is therefore important that the commercial unit has areas that are designed and set up for collaboration, if needed. This does not mean, however, that a flexible workspace with areas that can be set up in different ways is not a possibility.
Alongside collaborative working, however, the fact that there are some people who will need to focus on specific tasks and require a quiet space is a big issue. Maybe they prefer to be in the office rather than at home, or have come in for the day. Lots of employees are used to the quiet of working from home and have now become accustomed to the quiet. For businesses that are looking to attract people back into the office, it is, therefore, essential that there are also some spaces where people can work individually, with focus, and relative quiet.
This means that an office unit that is successful in bringing employees back into the office would ideally give them the opportunity to work in both a collaborative space and a quieter space. This can be managed through a number of different measures, such as separate rooms, booths, partitions, or zoning within the commercial unit.
Zoning in an Office Unit
The most flexible method of keeping the specific environments separate is zoning. This can be used in any office unit. It might make sense to use different rooms for zones, but if the office space is more open-plan in nature, using partitions, booths, or desk clusters can be a great way to do this.
By using these zoning techniques, those who wish to work in a specific way can work amongst others who are looking for the same thing. If the office unit has a large open-plan space, zoning areas can also be adapted according to demand.
It is generally agreed that office units should provide three different ‘zones’:
- Quiet/concentration zone – spaces where the area is quiet, for employees that are needing to focus with no distractions – ideal spaces are private offices, booths, and thinking pods.
- Collaborative zone – spaces that are conducive to collaborative working – large tables, whiteboards, video interactive screens, could be based at one end of a large space, or in a separate huddle room.
- Community zone – spaces where employees can help to build the community and culture within the business. These could be places such as staff rooms, kitchens, cafes, or play spaces – anywhere that can improve cohesion within the office unit.
Final Thoughts
The working habits of many office workers in the UK have changed drastically over the past few years, and likewise with what businesses are expecting from their employees. It has generally been accepted that for many office workers, a hybrid model is the most effective, but it is important to them that wherever they are working from, it is the most productive space for them and their needs at that time.
Here at Boxpod, we have a wealth of commercial units to rent across the country, so if you are a business looking for a commercial unit, or if you are a landlord/lady with a commercial unit to rent, why not get in touch today?