Half-Empty Offices in Flexible Work Arrangements: Why are Employees Not Returning?

• Main Authors: Smite, Darja, Moe, Nils Brede, Tkalich, Anastasiia, Hanssen, Geir Kjetil, Nydal, Kristina, Sandbæk, Jenny Nøkleberg, Aamo, Hedda Wasskog, Hagaseth, Ada Olsdatter, Bekke, Scott Aleksander, Holte, Malin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 26-08-2022
• Subjects: Computer Science - Software Engineering
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2208.12797

Although the pandemic times of the world-wide forced working from home seem
to be in the past, many knowledge workers choose to continue working
predominantly from home as a partial or permanent practice. Related studies
show that employees of companies from various industries, diverse in size and
location, prefer to alter working in the office with working at home, coined as
hybrid or flexible working arrangements. As a result, the post-pandemic times
are associated with empty offices, confused managers and organizational leaders
not knowing what to do with the often-expensive rental contracts. In this
paper, we investigate the employee presence in the offices in two software
companies and dive deeper into the reasons behind the preferences to work
remotely, practices that help to attract employees back into the offices and,
in cases when this is not possible, the ways companies can repurpose the office
space for the future needs of their employees. The latter are based on the
qualitative analysis of interviews and survey responses. Our findings suggest
that since the fall 2021 the offices were half-empty and that, on average, the
daily office presence varies between 15-30%. The reasons for working remotely
include behavioural and practical motivations, as well as factors related to
office equipment and facilities, and the nature of the work tasks. Finally, we
discuss the practical implications of our findings on the future work
arrangements.