Rethinking Workplace Sweden Snapshot What is The Great Indoors?

When we think about ‘the great outdoors’ we get a sense of wonder and adventure. We imagine time spent in the fresh air a positive experience. Yet our time outdoors tends to be limited. In fact, the office working population more typically spends 90% of their time indoors. Knowing this, we made it our mission a decade ago to understand how we can help create ‘The Great Indoors’.

With a focus on health and wellbeing, we set about designing flooring systems that counteract some of the challenges of being inside for such a large part of our lives. We recognise that since we started this journey, things have inevitably moved on. That today health and wellbeing in a wider ‘future of work’ context is as much about the emotional as it is the physical environment.

We started by reflecting on our own interpretation of ‘wellbeing’ and challenging the industry category we proudly serve. It conveys that we carry out paid employment in one setting, which we’ve found is simply not the case for most people. Yes, we spend 90% of our time indoors, but how we spend that time is changing. As part of our ongoing project, we are exploring the impact of this on the A&D community through our research reports, focus group events and our digital platform The Great Indoors.

Discover more at www.thegreatindoors.eu

2 What is Rethinking Workplace?

3 What we’ve done so far

Conducted by people in Survey of 500 4,500 international market each region European office research company, workers OnePoll

9 Sweden UK France Germany Czech Netherlands Poland Denmark Belgium countries Republic

Focus groups for architects & designers in London & Amsterdam

Focus group HASSELL Studio HOK MCM Scheiwiller Svensson participants: TP Bennett GSK Maber MER Arkitektur

4 Why we did it

This reflects the fact that everything is much To rethink what makes more fluid now, and by breaking free from ‘The Great Indoors’, great. connotations of compromise or interference, we are given back a feeling of control over Technology has broken down the walls that our day-to-day. constrain when and where we work. So, we asked, is ‘workplace’ still the right term of We wanted to uncover how this trend is reference? After all, it implies that work only impacting on the design and specification happens within the same four walls, which is of office environments, with the aim of no longer true. facilitating wider discussion that gets to the heart of how we - designers, specifiers, The lines between the personal and suppliers - can all play a part in making ‘The professional, work and life, have long been Great Indoors’ indeed great and geared up blurring. And now, we believe these separate for a new way of working. entities should be dropped to become one standalone statement: worklife.

5 Sweden focus: What we found

Health and Despite being most wellbeing matter fulfilled when work most – Swedish and life are in sync, Office workers employees want The majority 80% regularly put in Sweden are less noise and feel they are in more than their amongst the most better air quality most productive contracted hours satisfied in Europe when in an office environment

6 What do office workers in Sweden really want?

Overall, initial research has shown us that office workers in Sweden are quite satisfied with their current workplace environments. Compared to other European countries, a high percentage of Swedes have the opportunity to work from home (53% versus 48% in Europe). And the majority of Swedish employers appear to offer employee benefits.

Despite this, 80% of the workforce currently works overtime, with 23% stating they can “rarely” switch off. People believe they’re most productive in the office over working off-site (67%), but an early finish one day per week is the most coveted ‘perk’ – overtaking flexible working hours (the top choice for the rest of Europe).

This suggests that although Sweden’s office workers are afforded greater flexibility than their European counterparts, what they actually want is more down-time outside of their working hours. There is evidence of ‘worklife’ in practice, but perhaps too much blurring between the two entities is leading to little opportunity for completely switching off.

80% of the workforce currently works overtime

In the research report to follow, we benchmark the Swedish findings against European trends to explore the notion of worklife and what it means for the future of workplace.

With special focus on the noise and indoor air quality issue - shown to be office workers’ biggest concerns across the board - we consider the wider health and wellbeing implications. Sharing the perspectives of architects, designers and specifiers from our focus group events, we set out what worklife means for our interpretation of ‘The Great Indoors’ and also assess what it could mean for other businesses operating within the commercial interiors segment.

7 Health & wellbeing SWEDEN EUROPE 53% have the opportunity to work from home, whereas this is the case for only 48% of 53% 48% European employees

SWEDEN EUROPE SWEDEN EUROPE 59% 47% 80% 69%

59% of Swedish office workers feel they can 80% currently work more than their be themselves and reach their full potential contracted hours versus 69% in Europe compared to just 47% of Europeans

“It’s about embracing a dynamic way of working. One These results show that Swedish workers that adapts to the are perhaps afforded more flexibility from type of job you’re their employers than the majority of the European workforce. And, as a result of doing.” this, they appear to be happier in their surroundings.

Although the majority have the option to work off-site, they feel more productive in an office environment (67%). However, with a high percentage of people working overtime, it seems that too much ‘flex’ could actually be restricting peoples’ downtime.

9 “End users need freedom; architects and designers can What workers want create it.”

“Spaces Boundaries that support flexibility drive Almost half of office workers see the growing convergence between home and work as a benefit. And 30% feel most behavioural fulfilled when their home and work lives are in sync. But with so much overtime been undertaken, there perhaps change.” needs to be some separation.

A reduction in noise and improved indoor air quality

Health and wellbeing factors are most important to “Worklife is Swedish workers – mirrored across Europe. The greatest concern is noise (25%), followed by poor indoor air quality affecting the (24%) and uninspirational decor and fittings (23%). way we design spaces. Lives are blurring.”

10 Worklife & flexibility 25% are chief 53% caregivers have the option to 26% work from home 67% share caregiving believe they are responsibilities most productive compared to 15% in the office in Europe

These insights suggest that Swedish office workers are provided more options for flexible working than their European counterparts. And that opportunities are more equal in terms of caregiving responsibilities being shared at home. However, they still want and need a dedicated place of work. While the majority of Europeans prefer to work independently, Sweden is more collaborative with a leaning towards group tasks. Therefore, employers must ensure they support discussion and creativity to best meet the requirements of their workforce.

47% 24% currently work in an describe themselves open plan space as ‘collaborative’

“Designers need to carry out a firm analysis of the organisation they’re working for. More importantly, they need to find out their ambitions. Architects and designers are there to facilitate the process, translating the ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ into functional spaces. The attention on this phase is always too little. We need to understand the now and how to future-proof.”

12 In Sweden, worklife seems to be the norm, despite potentially having some adverse effects. Here, the designers in our focus group events share the potential pitfalls:

“Worklife, as I understand, “Our work time is “Younger people blurring to anytime. No is the blurring of private want stronger life and work. Social longer separated, work media has blurred this; and life are more fluid. boundaries lots of discussion in this Technology has brought between work area at the moment as about the blurring and and life. They’re many are trying to push it depends on what building the back and reclaim space technology you use and between work and life.” how you use it.” barriers back up.”

But, regardless, it is having an impact on design projects:

“Worklife is affecting “Some would argue “From a health and wellbeing the way we design it’s shifted too far. You perspective, architects and space. More informal designers can support worklife can sit on a bouncy spaces and lives are by making everything available. blurring, which has ball and work but you But there is also a need to create led to more demand would struggle to find areas where absolutely nothing is for yoga and mindful a suitable place to available. When you’re in a high studios in the have a call.” energy role, constantly in meetings workplace today.” and on the phone, people need peace and quiet – it’s a positive trend. It’s good to do nothing.”

The overwhelming response from the design community in supporting a more fluid worklife within office design is the importance of achieving ‘balance’. Swedish workers value flexibility but require a dedicated office in order to feel most productive. And this is closely linked to health and wellbeing factors.

13 Improvements in noise and indoor air quality Noise was highlighted This was followed by Noise was selected by a Indoor air quality was as the main concern in indoor air quality (24%) much higher percentage more of an issue for Sweden - selected by of women than 18-24 year olds than 25% of workers men as their top any other age group workplace concern (33% versus 19%)

Noise was the number one issue in Sweden.

“Noise is an This is perhaps unsurprising as almost half of the current issue in working offices in Sweden are open plan, suggesting ample space environments. It’s for collaboration but potentially not ‘heads down’ work. either too noisy or too quiet. Design can address this, but cost always comes in.” Noise is something predominantly seen as a design issue, but according to the designers in our focus groups, bad acoustics tends to be the overriding problem.

When looking at the European results overall, noise is more of a problem for facilitating ‘deep work’ that requires “Music can be high levels of concentration. And this also seems to be a problem – the case in Sweden. headphones aren’t sociable but music choice is very personal and can be distracting.” “People talking on the phone is most disturbing. It’s difficult to create environments that “There is a difference tackle this.” between noise and bad acoustics…eight out of 10 times it’s down to acoustics. It’s important because acoustics influence behaviour.”

15 “They can have a good climate but still have an emotional need to open a window - it’s perception and emotion driving it rather than a literal need. People in Sweden want clean air. The reality is, The personal adjustment escaping indoors isn’t necessarily the answer. of air lets people feel in The general consensus, from a design control of their space.” perspective, is that while air quality is a clear concern, there is a limit as to how far this can be resolved by the response to the brief. Cost is frequently an issue. Good climates don’t come cheap. Also, very often, the biggest challenge is the building itself. Sometimes it’s not possible to make a significant difference to air quality. Sometimes it’s about making better use of the “The personal outside space: more balconies, inventive use adjustment of of atrium-like areas or using design cues to encourage people to go outside. light and air let’s people feel in Carefully selected plant life and products control of their proven to make a tangible difference are also space.” acknowledged as part of the solution. But what it really comes down to, said those specifying “What it on behalf of the client in our focus groups, is giving end-users a feeling of being in greater comes down control of their personal environments. to is a lack of control.”

16 Key takeaways Set boundaries that support flex Invisible People want and need a designated workspace issues matter. - it’s crucial to providing a positive worklife Embrace everyone’s space Noise & Indoor Offices in Sweden are set-up to facilitate collaboration, but people also need quiet

air quality top Allow people ‘downtime’ Too much overtime can lead to difficulty switching concerns off at home - flexibility has to work for both employer and employee

There’s no denying that the world of work From ‘zoning’ to support ‘deep work’ is changing. The wants and needs of the and collaboration, to customisable modern workforce are more wide-ranging than ever before. And as a result of this, designs that allow for personalisation, businesses must adapt in order to attract the A&D community is constantly and retain the best talent. coming up with new ways to help improve employee happiness and With health and wellbeing topping the list wellbeing, and as a result, company of concerns for Swedish, and European, productivity. Office employees in workers – a theme that’s increasingly being reflected in design trends – this seems Sweden are amongst the happiest – the most logical start in promoting more albeit overworked – in Europe, but productive office environments. as we’ve seen through these insights, the opportunity to build on their experience is vast.

18 www.thegreatindoors.eu