Three-fourth of employees want to be in office at least once in a week, a survey released by JLL on Wednesday said. This is an improvement over 52 per cent in a similar survey result announced in October last.

According to the survey, 91 per cent of the respondents favour flexible working hours. The social interactions that an office space provides are being sorely missed, to the extent that 41 per cent of the workforce is craving ‘real’ human interactions with colleagues while 31 per cent of them miss a change of scenery.

Preparing the Indian workforce for the ‘Future of work’

It also found that 79 per cent of the workforce wants to work remotely from home at least once in a week, and this number goes up to 89 per cent when a third-party place of work is added. 21 per cent of the workforce does not want to work from home in the future, as opposed to 16 per cent in October last year. “91 per cent of the workforce want to choose their schedules and working hours as per the latest results, up from 69 per cent as per the October 2020 survey results,” it said.

More human-centric offices

These results are based on a global research survey of over 3,300 respondents that was undertaken to create this barometer, which was consolidated over time with two previous surveys over the whole year of the pandemic, starting March 2020, and repeated in October 2020 and March 2021. In India, all respondents were 18+ and working professionals and working with companies with at least 100 employees or more. Over 90 per cent of the surveyed were employed with private companies with big corporates comprising 70 per cent of these and SMEs (small and medium enterprises) forming the rest.

Co-working offices — the future of workplaces

“The offices of the future will have to be more human-centric, putting health and well-being at the forefront. There is a greater understanding and need for work-life balance amongst employees now. Companies will need to be mindful of the requirement for more flexible work patterns,” said Radha Dhir, CEO and Country Head, India, JLL.

Elaborating further, Samantak Das, Chief Economist and Head of Research & REIS (India), JLL, said, “We have witnessed renewed demands of the workforce for workplaces with employees’ rising aspirations and expectations. As we are emerging from the effects of the pandemic, it has become essential to create a human-centric framework and cater to employees’ aspirations.” Further, the office needs to augment it with innovative technologies in line with the evolving needs of employees.

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