“We see among local employees a high degree of adaptability to the current context in which the volatility of the medical situation requires a high degree of flexibility on the labor market. By analyzing according to age categories, we notice that the younger generations, without children, tend to prefer mostly working from home, while employees over 40 have a greater desire to return to the office,” said Madalina Cojocaru, partner office agency at real estate consultancy company Cushman & Wakefield Echinox.
Half of the employees who normally work in office buildings continued to work mainly from home even after the state of emergency was lifted, despite the fact that over the summer most companies began to bring back their employees partially or through rotation in office spaces.
If during the state of emergency (March – May 2020) 83% of the employees worked from home, their number decreased to 50% during the state of alert (June – September 2020), while 22% of the employees completely resumed their work from the office, and 28% practiced a mix between work from home and work from the office, according to a survey conducted between September 28 and October 8 on a sample of 205 employees.
Most employees managed to adapt to the new working conditions, considering that working from home was not a widespread concept on the local market and the return to the office was done under special conditions, in compliance with medical safety rules and social distancing norms. Thus, 83% of the employees surveyed said they had a good experience both in terms of work from home and work from the office after returning from the state of alert, while the rest found this period unsatisfactory or even demoralizing from a professional point of view.
The time saved in traffic remains the main advantage of working from home, a perk appreciated by 83% of the employees, followed by additional freedom in managing working hours (56%) and cost savings (52%).
On the other hand, 76% of employees dislike the lack of direct communication with colleagues, almost half (48%) have difficulties in separating the personal and professional hours, and 39% do not have a suitable working space at home.
Moreover, 32% of employees feel the relationship with their colleagues has worsened during the work from home period, and 21% have difficulties in managing the relationship with customers, collaborators and partners.
In this context, only 7% of the employees would like to work exclusively from home after the pandemic ends and the most desired schedule is a mix of 3 days work from the office and 2 days work from home, an option chosen by 26% of respondents.
For offices to increase their attractiveness among employees, they should be located closer to home (59%), have more green space (44%) and be safer, with a lower density (39%) and better ventilation systems (30%).