The U.S. job market has been on a hot streak and keeping workers happy at the office is one of the most important facets of retaining talent, recruiters and management experts say.
As The Wall Street Journal reports, more companies are taking employee complaints seriously, often spending millions on gleaming offices that incorporate their ideas, and no detail seems too small in some employers’ quest to please.
When McDonald’s Corp. opened its new Chicago headquarters last year, for example, it rolled out a workplace app with a temperature feature so employees could designate by mobile phone whether they were too hot or too cold and change the temperature in their portion of the workspace.
People adopted the app en masse, says Sheri Malec, senior director of workplace solutions at McDonald’s. “When people are uncomfortable, they’re not as productive,” she says.
American Airlines’ headquarters in Texas include plans for a lap pool and cricket pitch. Before Expedia Group opened the first phases of its $900 million Seattle campus last month, the travel company built a small office in the city to test lighting, furniture choices and an open office plan that Expedia then used in its final design.
Open offices are still the most popular choice, and while offices are touting more amenities, many workers’ dedicated personal spaces continue to shrink inside open offices.
To try to satisfy demands for privacy and concentration, says David Galullo, chief executive of design firm Rapt Studio, companies are adding more private conference rooms and other non-dedicated spaces. Read the full story about the offices of the future.
