As working from home has become more prevalent during the pandemic, some organisations are reviewing their office design to align with employees’ future needs, said NTT recently when releasing results of a survey with responses from 1,350 participants across 19 markets.
According to the report findings, 27.5% of businesses in Hong Kong are already reviewing the general office design and how best to align with employees’ new needs.
Most Hong Kong execs agree that the physical space will have a more defined, flexible use to provide for a more collaborative environment to enable the followings.
Connecting the distributed workforce. 57.5% will install video conferencing/video collaboration spaces to bring remote and office employees together.
Facilitating creativity and collaboration. 40% will implement creative/thinking spaces
Driving activity-based work initiatives. 20% will reduce individual office desk space with 17.5% increasing meeting spaces.
Among global respondents, they are somewhat polarised on what to do with office space in general, with more than a third (34.4%) of C-suite execs saying they are looking to reduce office space, yet almost a quarter (24.0%) plan to increase it.
Leaders need to set the foundation for future employee experience now
Having adapted to the pandemic in recent months, more than half (55.3%) of the global C-suite strongly agree that now is the time to create the workplace of the future, NTT pointed out.
How businesses combat the challenges posed by COVID-19 and re-shape their workplace strategy, will lay the foundation for an entire generation’s future of working, said Pranay Anand, Senior Director of Intelligent Workplace, Asia Pacific at NTT Ltd.
“Businesses must react with agility and purpose,” he noted. “Those who were already ahead of the game in employee experience – making brave, data-driven, human-led decisions are now in a much stronger position in creating a supportive culture. Empowering people and helping them find greater fulfilment in their work is delivering value to these organisations.”
