Workplace survey reveals home working with a central collaboration space is the ‘new normal’

Hybrid working, with a collaborative central space, is the preferred post-pandemic working style, according to a new workplace trends report published by Mace.

The Mace Operate Workplace Survey looked at the enduring role of a central office for businesses and considered what an office space needs to offer in an era of hybrid working.

The majority of respondents (87 per cent) said that interaction with people and workplace culture are the main benefits of going to the office with employees and employers seeing eye-to-eye on the need for collaboration for motivation, resilience and effective hybrid working.

Some 60 per cent of respondents ranked office redesign, to support activity-based and collaborative working, as the most or second-most effective way to encourage a return to the office showing that corporate real estate leaders have listened to what building users want.

Most businesses had already made, or plan to make, changes to their workplace to offer greater flexibility to encourage employees back to the office. Thirty-nine per cent of respondents said office design had been updated already, with 27 per cent planning to make changes.

The survey found that hybrid working is here to stay, with 78 per cent of respondents wanting one or more office days each week – the most popular choice being more than two days a week in the office (44 per cent).

The adoption of technology was highlighted as an area of opportunity to further improve the workplace experience, with 43 per cent of those surveyed wanting to see a workplace experience app implemented, with 17 per cent saying one has been implemented in their workplace in the past six months.

Ross Abbate, Chief Executive of Mace Operate said: “In recent years our ways of working have changed dramatically and at pace. This speed of transformation is also seen in our workspaces as they adapt to cater for the post-pandemic expectations of businesses and their employees.

“The results of our 2023 workplace survey show that, with hybrid working now expected by staff and accepted by employers, the workplace needs to offer something that home working doesn’t: versatile, function driven spaces for collaboration of all kinds, a place where the everyday experience enables excellence and makes colleagues want to be a part of it.’’

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