Strategic Changes in the Workspaces

IndiQube Market Survey July 2021 IndiQube’s study suggests that 66% of the employees would prefer to work from offices up to 3 days per week after getting vaccinated. Of these, 53% prefer working from the office 2-3 days per week and 13% prefer to work from

BY Realty Plus
Published - Thursday, 15 Jul, 2021

IndiQube Market Survey July 2021 IndiQube’s study suggests that 66% of the employees would prefer to work from offices up to 3 days per week after getting vaccinated. Of these, 53% prefer working from the office 2-3 days per week and 13% prefer to work from the office once a week. On the other extreme, there are 10% of employees who would rarely or never want to return to offices. As can be seen, an adaptive business should be able to meet this difference in expectations of employees and embrace a hybrid working model to accommodate the new normal. WFH? Why not! When asked about a major advantage of WFH, 45% of the respondents in the survey by IndiQube agreed upon the benefits of time and efforts saved in commuting. A lot of time goes into commuting to and from the workspaces and WFH does seem to provide the necessary framework to do away with this. Another 21% of employees believed that a major advantage of WFH was a better work life balance as they could now choose to work on their own terms rather than the designated 9-5. WFH? Not so easy! The survey by IndiQube also reported extended work hours as a major disadvantage of WFH. 47% of the employees agreed that WFH has actually increased their working hours. As per the findings, these extended work hours involved shorter but more frequent meetings per day, more emails, and long workdays. On the other hand, 28% of employees believed that juggling home & office tasks has been a major disadvantage while working from home. These are often employees with young kids or those staying with joint families. What is the way ahead? 71% of the employees surveyed by IndiQube unanimously chose a combination of both a fully remote and a fully office-based working style. This highlights a hybrid model of working style as the clear preference that would enable employees to take the benefits of both of them. With more productivity, a lesser number of in-office workdays, switching off the exhaustion from the daily commute, and time-saving, WFH along with an office-based working style can be well anticipated and foreseen. Strategic integration of the existing structures of business with the needs brought forward by this pandemic would enable businesses to become more adaptive and efficient. To conclude, policies and workspaces now need to be redesigned to synthesize with both styles of working. This will allow the businesses to run smoothly and dynamically. To the businesses, the time invested in incorporating this change would definitely bring in higher returns in the long run with an even more productive workforce.