How Ukrainian Companies Work in Pandemics and What They Appreciate in Offices

2020 will be rich in results. The year became a test — industries collapsed, elemental spheres of life changed. Especially our relationship with work has changed. It has become more important in every sense.

Frames and figures

On the one hand, the pandemic provoked contraction and uncertainty — in Ukraine alone, the spring lockdown could deprive up to 1 million people of their jobs. In total, the country’s economy could lose up to 4% of annual GDP, forecasts JP Morgan bank.

On the other hand, we have more work — the average working day at a “remote” has become longer by 48 minutes, says a Harvard Business School study. And what happened to the business that has completely gone into digital reality? “Most companies are less productive than they were 12 months ago,” says Harvard Business Review.

Digital giants have largely retained flexible policies that allow employees to choose where they want to work, but do not force them to work only from home.

For example:

• Twitter and Square have forever allowed companies to work remotely — and if they want to visit the office.
• Facebook plans to transfer up to half of its employees to permanent work from home in the next 10 years, Mark Zuckerberg is sure.
• The head of Netflix, Reed Hastings, strongly criticizes remote work. He promises to return employees to their offices “12 hours after the vaccine is approved”.
• “Most of the key work cannot be done from home,” wrote Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in a March letter to investors.
• Google employees will work remotely until the epidemic normalizes, but internal documents already show that the productivity of engineers has decreased.

Few studies are reflecting the real situation in Ukraine. To record how Ukrainian companies work in the pandemic, how people perceive the new work format and what they think about the difference between “remote” and “office”, the Creative States team conducted a survey.

It was attended by 209 respondents from our four locations. These were IT specialists, representatives of venture capital, financial, tourism, creative industries and the real economy. The majority of respondents are people aged 26 to 35 years.

How Ukrainian companies work in the pandemic and what they value in the offices — research by the Creative States

The majority of respondents’ work does not require the mandatory presence in the office — only 12.9% are “tied” to the offline. The rest either already worked remotely or adapt to any format. But this does not mean that everyone likes “telecommuting” — 57% of respondents like it.

Why do employees love their offices?

Three reasons dominate:

• The work environment (43.5%)
• The opportunity to communicate with colleagues and feel part of the community (41.6%).
• Comfort and absence of home annoyances (12.9%)

In this triangle — atmosphere, community, and comfort — lies the secret to the productivity that many “remote workers” miss so much. Many companies understand this: for example, Dropbox transforms its offices into so-called Dropbox Studios — places for free visits without assigned workplaces. You can create there, you can work there, you can gather for meetings.

Not everyone has the comparable financial means of the Valley giants. Fortunately, spending millions on the workspace isn’t necessary either — co-working spaces provide all of these benefits by taking the administrative burden off of businesses.

They are designed to break down barriers and provide infrastructure for maximum productivity and comfort. Co-working no longer compete with offices but change what the term means. Our homes — no matter how good they are — simply cannot compete with it.

According to the Creative States survey, one-third of our employees have problems with concentration at home. They’re distracted, and the company and the person end up losing productivity.

Only a third of respondents said that they harmoniously separate work and life in remote mode. One in four had a mix of household and work-related activities. The rest are still trying to achieve harmony.

At the same time 58% of respondents believe that their productivity in the office is higher than at home.

Besides, the office is a hub for access to infrastructure. If we are talking about business centers, it can be obtained in one building. Approximately 40% of respondents say that they appreciate the availability of gyms, beauty salons and other services in maximum accessibility.

But it’s easy to rent an office in a class-A business center, which is affordable for a few companies. Rental rates in Kyiv begin with $32 per square meter, repair, maintenance and collateral payments together will be a huge and unreasonable expense.

Co-workings provide the same, but on request, cheaper and easier — any team can find the right option in the city’s best locations. Among Creative States respondents, 65% rent office space assigned to them, another 28% work in hot-desk mode, and the rest use only additional services: rent for event or negotiations.

How Ukrainian companies work in the pandemic and what they appreciate in their offices — study by Creative States

And although business is primarily numbers, in the case of remote and office work they do not explain all the nuances. “If we compare productivity on individual projects, everything may seem normal,” — wrote Paul Graham, venture capitalist and co-founder of Y Combinator, about the consequences of the total “removal”. And he adds that one of the key losses of this format is random meetings and dialogues, which help companies move forward.

Co-workings are designed to bring people together, provide them with comfort and synergy. History has repeatedly confirmed the effectiveness of this format. Do you know what unites mobile communication, solar panels and transistors? All of them were created in the research center Bell Labs — a prototype of modern coworking, in which scientists from different fields worked under one roof. Each team had its own room and common area. We reap the fruits of this work until today.

The Coronavirus pandemic was a challenge for everyone. If we lock ourselves in our homes forever in response to it, it can cause irreparable harm to business. If you accept the new philosophy — work from anywhere — you may be on the threshold of a new breakthrough. “It is very important for us to maintain the productivity and good mood of each resident, his comfort,” wrote the authors of the survey, sending the questionnaire to customers of Creative States. First of all, this means flexibility. Respondents named not only a permanent office (38%), but also the option of hot-desk (21.1%), booking meeting rooms (16.7%) and renting an office for a day (8.6%) among the services relevant to the pandemic.

The work has already changed and classical offices do not keep up with it. Co-working is at the forefront of change. And the closer the victory over COVID-19 is, the more relevant it becomes.