Staff look for more benefits at work

Mao Xue, a 42-year-old business development manager in a pharmaceutical company in Beijing, couldn’t believe her eyes when she got a resignation letter from one of her newest colleagues.

After all, the 23-year-old was selected from 170 candidates and sailed through four rounds of interviews to land the job. And it paid well — about 23,000 yuan per month — a very respectable income in Beijing for a first-year professional.

“I couldn’t believe it when reading through the reasons he listed in his letter for quitting. As an old hand worked for over two decades in the company, I never found these problems,” she said.

The reasons listed included unstable internet access, often taking more than three minutes to reset webpages. Another problem was that his computer ran too slow, wasting his “precious” time.

Then the cleaners only vacuumed the office carpet once a week, not frequently enough, because he was allergic to untidy carpets. Another gripe: the receptionist was not helpful because she turned down his request to book a restaurant for him. And then the snacks offered at the pantry weren’t delicious at all, which upset him a lot.

For all these reasons, the young man said in the letter, he did not feel good about working in the office, and could not work well.

“When I was 22 and started working, there wasn’t such as a thing as a pantry. Are young workers demanding too much?”, she asked.

But the young man who complained about office conditions is not alone. According to findings from market research firm Ipsos and furniture supplier Steelcase, which together polled 12,480 office workers in 17 countries, about 11 percent said their unsatisfactory feelings about office conditions compromised their performances at work.

On the other end of the chart, about 13 percent of polled workers said they are highly satisfied with workplace conditions, which inspired them to perform better.

“Workplace conditions … are highly correlated to performances”, the report said.

Wu Xuchao, head of energy and sustainability services, China operation at JLL, said that he also had noticed growing calls from clients asking for help to improve their working conditions to attract and retain staff.

“It’s been interesting to see that until recently, the office business arms of real estate firms mainly focused on location, rental, maintenance and energy efficiencies for their clients. Now it’s a matter of office workers’ well-being, and more employers are willing to invest to improve conditions for employees,” Wu said.

Improving workplace conditions is an investment in human resources, which may not yield a tangible result in the short-term and the effects can’t really be measured by numbers, Wu added.

Gyms, pantries, and even indoor gardens which are not equipped in conventional offices are now popular in new types of offices.

“These new facilities mean that office operators need to grow new skills. Besides outsourcing some operations to third-party providers — such as coaching programs in gyms and gardening — operators need to do some due diligence about the property itself,” Wu added.