Office location key factor for staff engagement, with home working preferred ⁰

It might be disheartening to learn that despite an employers best efforts to design an engaging and inspiring workplace, for many employees it’s where the offices are located that matters most. In a recent UK poll by ClickSoftware over half (57%), said office location was the most important reason why they’d stay in their job ahead of both pay (52%) and job security (33%). However, the most preferred place to work is at home, with 60 percent of people identifying this location to be ‘very comfortable’. The survey also looked at the factors that affected job performance, and found one in five people (20%) believe their productivity at work has been negatively affected by the location of their job. This increases further in the capital with over a quarter of Londoners (26%) feeling that their productivity would suffer by working in a ‘horrible location’.

Within the UK, employees in the South-East value the location of their job more than anyone else in the country. The majority of Londoners are happy with the view from the office as they identified this to be the most inspirational place for them, and instead focus on achieving promotion, which is nearly five times as important to the capital’s workers (23%) than people in East Anglia (5%).

The younger generation are by far the most affected by the location of their work, with a quarter (24%) of 25 to 34 year olds admitting that their productivity is likely to be affected by a ‘horrible location’. More notably, over two-thirds of people (67%) revealed they have either considered or actually left a job, at least in part, for a change in scenery.