The six biggest complaints about the office – and how to fix them

As the return to the office finally gains momentum after a prolonged period of employee resistance, WORKTECH Academy director Jeremy Myerson reflects on the most frequently leveled charges against the office – and how to address them.

As we reach the halfway mark in 2024, there are some signs to indicate that momentum is swinging back towards in-office working. More employers are taking a tougher line on showing up in the workplace; more younger workers are opting to build their professional networks face-to-face; road and rail commuting routes are busier than before. 

But that doesn’t mean the issues that have created such difficulties in orchestrating a return to the office have gone away. On the contrary, the charge sheet against the office is a long one. There are still many physical, psychological, cultural and emotional barriers for companies to overcome to ‘earn the commute’ and bring people back.

At WORKTECH Academy Academy, our latest exclusive Trend Report for members takes aim squarely at the office, laying bare six of the most common criticisms expressed by employees.

This shock therapy has a purpose because it is only by addressing these brickbats head-on can we see the way to a better workplace.

The good news is that there are now plenty of ways to address these problems – a wealth of research models, design strategies and new technologies capable of turning the office from a place of difficulty to a dynamic destination for employees.

So, what are the most common criticisms and how might we fix them?

Uncoordinated

The first charge against the office is that, in the more unpredictable era of hybrid working, you take the trouble to commute to the office but your colleagues are not in at the same time as you are. You can’t access the people, settings and tools you need to work effectively. The office lacks coordination. 

This is a tough nut to crack. According to JLL’s 2024 Global Occupancy Planning Benchmarking report, only 15% of organisations specifically define days for individuals to attend the office. And a study by technology start-up deskbird has suggested how higher productivity in the office is linked to whether hybrid work is coordinated or uncoordinated.

Making sure you can plan to meet with the right colleagues and book the right spaces when you come into the workplace – the essence of coordinated hybrid work – supports face-to-face collaboration on complex tasks and helps maintain morale. But too often, this dimension is missing.

Solutions are at hand, however. New digital tools that enable you to track who is coming into the office, when they are coming in, and where they are sitting, will give employees the autonomy to plan their own schedules and settings when they are in the office. These range from Organisational Network Analysis (ONA), focusing on meta-data showing networks inside companies, to AI-powered workplace apps.

Which organisations addressing this issue successfully? Step forward Barclays , which is using new technology to streamline the coordination of its teams in the hybrid era.

Dysfunctional

 The second major complaint about the office is that it’s simple unfit for purpose. It’s hard to get basic work tasks done that require privacy and concentration. Support systems are rarely seamless. In chasing novel workplace concepts, function is often forgotten.

When architecture firm Gensler surveyed 16,000 office workers across 15 countries for its 2024 global workplace survey, its research found that the top reason employees come to the office is to focus on their work – this includes focusing on team and individual work. For this to take place, the workplace needs drop the dysfunctional tag and support different types of work effectively.

The most important factors for designing a functional workplace are the design look and feel, ease of contact to people and resources, and noise levels in a workspace, according to Gensler. A dysfunctional workplace can be transformed by such things a new approach to space and settings, better IT support and more robust processes.  

Who is getting this right? Our vote goes to Meta London’s office at King’s Cross where a range of alternative work settings are designed with functionality at their core

 Uncomfortable

Employees who enjoyed the comforts of home during the pandemic are wary of returning to a large, generic office environment offering little personal control. A lack of comfort – both physical and psychological – makes people feel ill at ease, especially when they’ve been able to easily customise their workspace to their needs at home.

The latest Leesman Index survey suggests that the home still does a better job of supporting knowledge workers than ‘average’ offices. And when a Harvard University research team compared work performance and wellbeing between the office and home in May, based on a survey of more than 600 workers in the US and Canada, it discovered that while perceived work performance was significantly higher at the office, comfort and wellbeing were significantly higher at home.

There are fortunately lots of things we can do to improve comfort. These include lighting innovations to support natural rhythms, systems to improve air quality, soundscapes to reduce stress, ergonomic furniture, biophilia and co-designing processes to give people a greater sense of control over their environment.

Measures to support acoustic privacy are especially important as being able to focus without noise and distraction is widely cited as one of the chief advantages of working from home.

Who is getting it right in this area? Take a look at the new Amsterdam campus for travel website Booking.com which places a high priority on comfort for its 6,500 employees, especially in terms of acoustics.

Unhealthy

Just as the office is seen as uncomfortable, it also continues to be associated with poor health and contamination.

This preconception is a hangover from the pandemic when offices were shuttered to prevent the spread of disease, and it lingers despite the vast amount of work that organisations have done since to improve human health in office buildings with better air quality, biophilia, smarter lighting and more nutritious food.

Research suggests that sitting down all day is bad for your health – the office need to do more to promote movement and active workstyles. Commuting is stressful, especially by car. Poor mental health at work is reaching epidemic levels.

Shifting the reputation of the office as a place of harm, not health, starts with creating a ’brain-healthy workplace’ according to WOKTECH Academy’s Trend Report. This view is based on US research with the Center for Brain Health which advocates for greater balance, alignment and connection in the workplace between people, place and technology.

Biophilic workplace design will make a difference here. So will Investment in a host of new tech solutions from air quality sensors to intelligent climate control systems. 

Who is taking on the challenge? Microsoft 's HQ building in Dublin has a soothing central atrium featuring a series of islands and a waterfall effect, which was created to support the mental health of around 2,000 workers. There is also a wellness centre, gym, yoga studio, in-house bakery, several treatment rooms, and a visiting hairdresser.

Exclusionary

 Many people still don’t feel they belong in the office despite all the talk of diversity, equity and inclusion. The needs and values of some people are favoured over others. Those who have traditionally been excluded continue to be shut out due to deep-rooted structures of power, conformity and control.

The design historian Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler has suggested that the needs of white, able-bodied male professionals have been constantly prioritised over those of women, people of colour and workers with disabilities, including older workers.

Creating a more inclusive office is now a business priority. This is because a growing body of research suggests that a more diverse, multicultural workforce leads to faster innovation if given the right environment in which to thrive. There is also a link between taking an inclusive approach and better employee wellbeing, as constantly making people feel that they do not belong adversely affects their mental health. 

A less exclusionary office can be achieved by greater focus on inclusive design, and by closer attention to neurodiverse needs so that the office can cater for both sensory-avoiding hyper-sensitive employees and sensory-seeking hypno-sensitive ones within a single space.

Who is getting this right? Check out Honeywell 's office in Charlotte, NC, USA[TT1] , designed by architects HOK, which is designed around the idea of creating neighbourhoods for different teams to work in.

Unstimulating

Finally, we come to one of the most serious and consistently levelled charges of all – that the office is monotonous, repetitive, bland and boring. This lack of stimulation curbs creativity and restricts innovative thinking. 

 As I wrote in my book with Philip Ross , Unworking: a reinvention of the modern office, ‘The office needs a level of unpredictability if its aim is to incubate new ideas and push boundaries.’ Too often we encounter workplaces that are too vanilla.

How do we make the office more stimulating to encourage curiosity? Our Trend Report discusses the rise of the ‘super experience’, which drops the traditional focus on clarity and resource optimisation in favour of empathy and intrigue. It also looks at the drive to achieve greater visual complexity in building design, a campaign led by designer Thomas Heatherwick, who has criticised what he terms the ‘blandemic’ in his book Humanise.  

Then there is the trend identified by global consultancy EWRA-co towards a ‘flight to character’ as opposed to a ‘flight to quality’ in office buildings – this often involves the adaptive reuse of historic structures to create workspace with more meaning and purpose.  

Where can we find this type of stimulation? Check out M&C Saatchi in Sydney, which houses a diverse set of advertising companies in an elegantly restored heritage building.

There is some overlap between our six common criticisms that take aim at the office. Practices that are exclusionary or ignore comfort, for example, will adversely affect wellbeing and reinforce the idea of the office as unhealthy. Lack of stimulation is a disincentive for teams to coordinate.

However, our experience of researching and compiling our latest Trend Report tells us that there is so much to play for. Large employers have just got to keep working at it – design and technology solutions are out there which can help make the return to the office much smoother than it currently is. 

To access WORKTECH Academy’s Q2 2024 Trend Report, get in touch to find out about becoming a WORKTECH Academy member.

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About WORKTECH Academy

WORKTECH Academy is a world-leading membership club and intelligence platform exploring the future of work. We give you and your organisation access to best-in-class research, trends, market intelligence, and data to help you make informed workplace decisions. We also provide a comprehensive programme of workshops and briefings to connect with a global community of senior-level workplace professionals for peer-to-peer learning.

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