Sustainable, sociable and healthy: breaking down Gen Z’s workplace checklist

The work­ing lives of Gen­er­a­tion Z began at home in bed­rooms, liv­ing rooms and kitchens dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. With offices and co-work­ing spaces closed, the youngest mem­bers of the work­force were forced to hone their skills and com­mu­ni­cate with their new col­leagues over Zoom calls, Slack chan­nels and What­sapp groups.

But going vir­tu­al has not been with­out its perks. Gen Z was spared the years of long com­mutes endured by their old­er co-work­ers and became accus­tomed to a more bal­anced way of work­ing. With busi­ness as usu­al resum­ing, it was thought that younger work­ers would ditch the office in droves, favour­ing entire­ly remote, dig­i­tal­ly nomadic oppor­tu­ni­ties. And just like that, the hum­ble office would soon be obso­lete.

How­ev­er, this assump­tion miss­es the mark. In 2021 flex­i­ble work­space provider, Clock­wise com­mis­sioned a sur­vey reveal­ing that 60% of Gen Z work­ers would pre­fer to work from an office space part-time. Near­ly a third of those sur­veyed longed for social envi­ron­ments and strug­gled to cre­ate sep­a­ra­tion between their per­son­al and work lives when work­ing from home.

Ear­ly dis­rup­tors on the co-work­ing scene tapped into some­thing great, advo­cat­ing for a more casu­al approach to cor­po­rate envi­ron­ments. But, since this con­cept broke into the main­stream in the ear­ly 2010s, lit­tle has been done to move this con­cept for­ward.
With employ­ees being grant­ed greater free­dom over their sched­ules, increased digi­ti­sa­tion, and a rise in free­lancers and con­tin­gent work­ers, busi­ness­es are offer­ing more flex­i­bil­i­ty across the board. How­ev­er, organ­i­sa­tions that advo­cate a flex­i­ble approach for their employ­ees are still locked into fixed con­tracts as they would with a tra­di­tion­al office lease.

Inno­va­tions in com­mu­nal work­spaces are pick­ing up. Clock­wise, for exam­ple, allow busi­ness­es to scale their office foot­print up or down depend­ing on the growth of their teams. This demon­strates a keen aware­ness of how work is chang­ing on a prac­ti­cal lev­el. The agili­ty that organ­i­sa­tions nour­ished through­out the pan­dem­ic must now be reflect­ed in the chang­ing face of work­places.

Alexan­dra Livesey, chief oper­at­ing offi­cer at Clock­wise, spots a pat­tern emerg­ing. “A grow­ing num­ber of big brands are tak­ing small­er offices with­in our space,” she says. Two-thirds of Gen Z work­ers that relo­cat­ed from urban areas dur­ing the pan­dem­ic don’t plan on mov­ing back to big cities. Employ­ers are stuck. Livesey explains: “They don’t want to com­mit to region­al offices on a long-term basis, and they want to pro­vide at least the same qual­i­ty as their head office, which is improv­ing staff reten­tion.”

Employ­ee ben­e­fits like­wise reflect the chang­ing busi­ness land­scape. Along­side flex­i­ble work, almost three-quar­ters of Gen Z employ­ees said added facil­i­ties were some­thing they looked for as part of their work­ing pack­age when seek­ing new employ­ment. But most employ­ers do not have the capex, exper­tise or the time and ener­gy to try and build these facil­i­ties out them­selves for their teams. Pay­ing for a small office and get­ting all the ameni­ties includ­ed can be trans­for­ma­tive.

For teams to make the most of time spent in offices, the approach must be more than skin deep. Livesey out­lines the ratio­nale behind Clockwise’s care­ful­ly designed work­spaces. “[Young peo­ple] need diverse office facil­i­ties that pro­vide the oppor­tu­ni­ty to col­lab­o­rate and socialise with col­leagues but also space to work alone and focus,’’ she says.

Acoustic design and max­imis­ing expo­sure to nat­ur­al light are vital con­sid­er­a­tions for Clock­wise. Every detail is designed to aid ener­gy lev­els, focus and mood. There is no one-size-fits-all solu­tion. Stand­ing desks, break­out spaces, meet­ing rooms, out­door ter­races, kitch­enettes, and even pod­cast record­ing stu­dios allow work­ers to per­son­alise their work­ing envi­ron­ment, mix with cowork­ers and work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly or alone.

To top it off, employ­ers can­not over­look work­place sus­tain­abil­i­ty. A recent Bupa sur­vey revealed that 64% of Gen Z work­ers want their employ­ers to act on envi­ron­men­tal issues, and 31% said they would go as far as to turn down an employ­er with poor ESG cre­den­tials.

Ris­ing to the chal­lenge is not straight­for­ward, but co-work­ing could be a step in the right direc­tion. Clock­wise demon­strates how com­mu­nal work­spaces can con­tin­ue to inno­vate, despite their already strong pop­u­lar­i­ty. Their recent­ly launched Pos­i­tive Impact Strat­e­gy out­lines four core ambi­tions: achiev­ing car­bon neu­tral­i­ty, oper­at­ing in a cir­cu­lar econ­o­my, design­ing healthy work­spaces that pro­mote employ­ee well­be­ing, and ensur­ing a pos­i­tive socio-eco­nom­ic impact.

As Gen‑Z con­tin­ues to dic­tate the future work­place, busi­ness­es that embrace sus­tain­able, socia­ble, and healthy work­spaces will have an edge.

For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it work-clockwise.com

The working lives of Generation Z began at home in bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens during the pandemic. With offices and co-working spaces closed, the youngest members of the workforce were forced to hone their skills and communicate with their new colleagues over Zoom calls, Slack channels and Whatsapp groups.

But going virtual has not been without its perks. Gen Z was spared the years of long commutes endured by their older co-workers and became accustomed to a more balanced way of working. With business as usual resuming, it was thought that younger workers would ditch the office in droves, favouring entirely remote, digitally nomadic opportunities. And just like that, the humble office would soon be obsolete.

Young people need diverse office facilities that provide the opportunity to collaborate and socialise with colleagues but also space to work alone and focus