Accessibility, workplace communities and employee comfort are becoming key factors in office market performance, while companies increasingly need to balance spaces for concentration with areas designed for collaboration, Daniela Popescu, Director, Tenant Services & Workplace Advisory at Colliers, said at the People Empowering Business Forum, organised by The Diplomat-Bucharest.
Office buildings with direct access to metro stations and amenities that encourage community interaction record significantly lower vacancy rates than properties lacking these features, according to Daniela Popescu.
She presented findings from an analysis of office buildings that considered both public transport accessibility and the availability of community-oriented facilities around workplaces.
“We looked at office buildings from the perspective of access to metro stations and the communities they help create around them. The conclusions are quite clear: we see a vacancy rate of 7% for these buildings. At the other end of the spectrum, office buildings without direct metro access and without community areas or employee amenities have significantly higher vacancy rates, reaching as much as 26%,” she said.
According to Popescu, the figures demonstrate that changing working patterns are increasing the importance of both accessibility and the wider workplace environment.
“It is clear that the new way of working places a high value on accessibility, as well as on access to spaces that encourage communities to develop around office buildings.”
Employee comfort matters more than additional amenities
While companies often approach workplace transformation by asking for more facilities, social areas and amenities, Colliers’ experience shows that employees’ actual needs can be considerably more straightforward.
Popescu said that discussions with management teams frequently begin with requests for additional facilities, but employee feedback can reveal entirely different priorities.
“During our initial discussions with management, we often hear requests focused on accommodating more amenities and social spaces within office environments. However, we are frequently surprised to discover that the solutions are much simpler. What employees want is for the everyday discomforts they experience at work to be eliminated.”
She illustrated this with a recent workplace advisory project in which Colliers consulted more than 330 employees.
The findings revealed that the main problem was not a lack of social areas or amenities, but noise levels and the absence of suitable spaces for focused work.
“In a recent workplace advisory project, we had the opportunity to speak with more than 330 employees. To our surprise, we discovered that their main concern was not the lack of social space or amenities, but the noise they experienced in the office environment. What employees were missing were spaces where they could concentrate.”
Balancing collaboration and concentration in the workplace
The research also highlighted the need to accommodate two seemingly contrasting requirements within the same office environment: individual concentration and teamwork.
Popescu noted that 70% of companies surveyed said their daily operations involved collaboration with other departments.
“Essentially, we are talking about companies with two complementary needs: the need for concentration and the need for collaboration. The challenge is to design office spaces that can accommodate both types of functions at the same time,” she explained.
Although balancing these requirements might initially appear to demand larger office areas, Popescu argued that this is not necessarily the case.
“While it may seem at first that this approach would require a larger office space, it does not. And I believe this is one of the main changes in how we approach workplace design.”
Leadership involvement is essential to workplace transformation
Popescu also stressed that successful workplace advisory and transformation processes require the involvement of company leadership from the outset.
Understanding employee expectations, aligning workplace strategies with business objectives and involving management throughout the process are essential to developing effective office environments.
“The processes we undertake involve leadership from beginning to end. This is why aligning with management is extremely important,” she concluded.