New study: More innovation in the office – but happier employees at home

studying The distributed work dilemma: When innovation and job satisfaction compete Done by Vanson Bourne on behalf of VMware. It shows that respondents’ answers about where they feel most innovative go hand in hand with where they would prefer to work.

Seventy-two percent of respondents in Sweden and Norway believe their organization’s innovation improves if employees work from the office, while 79 percent feel more comfortable if they can choose where they work.

In addition, more than half (56 percent) of respondents in EMEA who work in a mixed workplace feel that morale improves, creativity increases (52 percent) and that collaboration (53 percent) within a work team has improved compared to before. before a pandemic.

– With increasing economic uncertainty, companies are forced to focus on innovation and productivity, but this doesn’t have to come at the expense of advances in the flexible workplace. Research shows that a hybrid workplace creates happier, more engaged teams, which can lead to a natural increase in innovation and improved efficiency, says Anders Liedmann, director of VMware in Sweden.

Measure the power of innovation

The survey also shows that companies with mixed workplaces within EMEA are the best at assessing an organization’s innovative strength. 97 percent have ways to measure the power of innovation and its impact on business and employees, compared to 82 percent of companies with fixed workplaces.

– Employees generally feel they can perform better when offered a hybrid workplace with tools to adapt to it, yet many business leaders believe that innovation thrives in the office. Our research encourages companies to apply proven methods to measure outcomes and ensure that perceptions do not override reality, so that there is the right basis for every decision. Anders Liedmann says organizations with mixed workplaces are currently doing much better than others.

The VMware survey includes responses from 5,300 employees as well as HR, IT and business decision-makers in Sweden, Norway, Germany and the UK, among others.

Source: VMware