Surveys show that Romanian employees count on working in hybrid or office-only arrangements in line with office building owners expectations of a gradual return to offices. With this scenario, office space transformation for the safer is a serious demand.
Employees expect to work in hybrid or office-only systems
According to a survey conducted nationwide in late 2021 on a total sample of 1,100 internet users in Romania more than 81% of employees think they would be working in a hybrid or office-only system in 2022. According to the research of Genesis Property, only 11% think their employer would opt for the team to continue to work remotely starting January.
This is in line with the survey carried out by EY Romania among 40 office building owners showing that 75% have kept their current rent prices despite negotiations with tenants. This could mean that most owners believe that employees will gradually return to the office and the remote work arrangements are not here to stay for the long term.
“However, returning to the office during a pandemic and changing employee expectations may represent the end of the office as we have known it until now and will bring many challenges for both office space owners and tenant companies with many employees,” said Roxana Dudău, Partner Băncilă, Diaconu și Asociații and Coordinator of the Real Estate Practice.
Transforming office spaces
The researches show a demand to transform the office spaces for a safer work environment. More than half of the surveyed building owners have received requests to reconfigure their open space plans because of health risks.
As for the employees, more than half of them are expecting radical transformations of company offices this year. They want to see an improvement in terms of sanitary systems (61.5%), interior spaces specifically designed to foster well-being (47.5%) and safe team collaboration (37.8%) – according to the Genesis survey.
“Nearly two years after the start of the pandemic, more and more Romanians have become more optimistic about their career prospects as the vaccination campaign accelerated and a significant part returned at least partially to the office. Thus, almost three-quarters of employees believe that 2022 will bring favourable developments in their working lives” said Teodor Stoica, Human Resources Manager at Genesis Property.
Source: property-forum.eu
