CEOs are ready to bring employees back to the office for full-time work, but they’re not always doing a good job in designing those offices to lure the workers back in happily, said Andy Cohen and Diane Hoskins, co-CEOs of Gensler, an architecture and design firm.
The top mistake, Cohen shared, is a lack of understanding of what the employees really want from the space. Sometimes they want a collaborative, social space, while others might prefer a quiet place to focus on their work. “What many companies don’t realize is that the office needs to give employees the space and resources for both collaborative and deep focus work, not one or the other,” he said.
It’s not enough to add just one selling point, such as a game room or cocktail bar, particularly if it’s chosen without employee input. Hoskins and Cohen suggest that business executives survey their staff to get a sense of what they would like to see at the office, and then make changes as necessary.
“Employers expect their employees to adjust [to returning to the office], yet the space hasn’t changed at all since the pandemic,” Cohen said. “If they don’t change, they’re going to become archaic. They’ll be left in the dust.”
