Workers prepared to quit over badly-designed offices

New research from Dell has revealed that UK businesses are putting productivity at risk with poor workplace design.

Although common complaints like office temperature, noisy colleagues and unnecessary meetings took the top three spots in the company's survey, poorly designed or implemented technology is also having a negative impact on employees.

Out of date technology (29%), poor Wi-Fi (22%) and poorly integrated technology (19%) also made the list of the top ten factors impacting the productivity of UK office workers.

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Failure to address these employee concerns will likely have far reaching consequences with almost three quarters of UK office workers (73%) stating that they would consider leaving an employer if they failed to provide a suitable workplace environment that inspires them to fulfill their role.

Improving office productivity

Dell's study of over 1,000 UK workers, conducted by market research organization Opinion Matters, also looked into what tools would help workers be more effective in the office with powerful desktop workstations (41%), high-end laptops (39%) and large interactive monitors (24%) being the most sought after by employees.

However, other tools such as virtual and augmented reality (11%) and digital project management tools such as Asana (10%) were less important to the survey's respondents.

When it comes to boosting creativity and collaboration in the workplace, having a diverse workforce was highlighted by nearly a third (29%) of UK office workers, alongside creativity training (25%), dedicated brainstorming areas (21%) and access to remote working technology (19%).

Senior director of the client services group at Dell EMEA, Neil Marshal explained why businesses should heed the advice from it study, saying:

“Our research suggests that the nation’s offices need an overhaul to improve employee wellbeing, happiness and ultimately, productivity. Businesses need to think carefully about the design of the workplace and specifically about how they integrate technology into employees’ workstations, breakout areas and meeting rooms. With clear evidence of the damming impact the wrong approach to technology can have, businesses can no longer afford for it to be an afterthought.“