2018 CHINA FIRST-TIER CITIES WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR RESEARCH

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1 2018 CHINA FIRST-TIER CITIES WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR RESEARCH

2 1/10 Abstract There are extensive valuable pieces of research about the workplace behavior that mostly focus on the U.S. and European workforce. Little research has studied employees in first-tier cities of China, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, exclusively. However, applying foreign research findings to Chinese work environment is questionable. In order to create better workplaces that fit Chinese culture, ida Behavioral Analysis Unit (ida BAU) invested 6 months, during which we surveyed over 3000 white-collars in first-tier cities of China and used scientific research methods and knowledge of cognitive psychology to provide an insight into work time allocation, mobile readiness, and workplace satisfaction. Through the analysis of the employees work time allocation, we found how they spend the 8-hour work time during a typical workday and identified different work behavior patterns to understand how they utilize their workspaces on different time spans. As mobile working is the current workplace trend, we defined mobile readiness to distinguish the employees who are more suitable for mobile working. Finally, we studied how they perceive and evaluate their workplaces to help us know which aspects of the current workplace need further improvement.

3 2/10 Demographics % I prefer not to answer 1% % I prefer not to answer 1% Male 52% We have collected over 3000 responses of white collars from 4 first-tier cities in China with various backgrounds. The demographics of the respondents is illustrated by the graphs below % Senior 3% Age % Middle 22% Job Level General Staff 48% % Female 47% Shenzhen Gender Shanghai 22% 21% Beijing 31% City Line 27% Guangzhou 26% Private Enterprise 55.0% State-owned Enterprise 25.9% Joint Venture 10.6% Wholly Foreign-owned Enterprise 8.5% Bench 45% Manufacturing INDUSTRY Information Transfer, Software & Information % Finance 9.3% Wholesale & Retail Trades 8.9% Education 7.5% Transport, Storage, and Postal Services 6.9% Health Care & Social Wor 6.3 Scientific Research & Polytech Services 5.5% Construction 5.4% Culture, Sport, and Entertainment 4.0% Real Estate 3.1% Leasing & Commercial Services 2.6% Accommodation & Catering 2.3% 19% Cubicle 39% Private Office 16%

4 3/10 Time Allocation One of our major purposes of this research is to know how white collars allocate their work time in a typical workday. By analyzing their workplace behaviors, we are able to get a better understanding of the utilization of their workspaces. We can thus take advantage of the information of their time allocation and space utilization to create better workplaces for them. Working concentratively at the workstation 2.6H Doing non-work-related stuff at the workstation 0.6H Relaxing 0.8H Working outside 0.8H Formal meeting 1.2H Making phone calls 1.1H Impromptu discussion 0.9H What do they do if not at their workstations? People may assume that most white collars spend most of their work time at their workstations, being busy in all kinds of documents or software. In fact, only a few of them are that stationary. According to our research, on average, white collars only spend one-third of their work time, approximately 2.6 hours on an 8-hour workday at their workstations. What else are they doing? Loafing around? Not necessarily. They spend 1.2 hours on formal meetings, 0.8 hours on impromptu discussions, 0.2 hours on making phone calls, 1.1 hours on working outside, and 1.4 hours on non-working-related stuff. Therefore, many of the white collars do not heavily rely on their workstations. Instead, their work behaviors have a lot of varieties, and they fully take advantage of various workspaces during a workday. What is behind the average numbers? However, average numbers cannot tell the whole story. Through detailed and insightful analysis, we have identified 4 types of typical white collars and their unique work behaviors. We call the first one the Advisor. Advisors use collaborative areas to communicate and interact with others most frequently, which takes up to 45% of their work time. They rarely use their workstations if they have any, as they only spend about 10% of their time on their workstations. Advisors are usually years old. They are mostly senior managers. Most of them work for wholly foreign-owned enterprises.

5 4/10 The second type is called the Concentrator. Concentrators, on the contrary, spend most of their work time on their workstations doing regular deskwork. Only about 10% of their work time is for communications or collaborations. They also spend little time on phone calls, business trips, or even relaxing, which only takes up to 20% of their time. Concentrators are primarily younger generations, who are aged from years. They are mostly general staffs. Most of them work for private enterprises. The last one is the All-rounder. All-rounder lives up to its name by taking part in all kinds of activities more evenly than any other types of white collars. They spend 40% of their time on their workstations, and they also spend more than 20% of the time on formal meetings and impromptu discussions and another 20% of the time on phone calls and business trips. As for the range of age, All-rounders are mainly years old, like advisors, and they are mostly line managers. Most of them work for private enterprises. The Traveler is our third type of white collars. As the name implies, they work outside of the workplace and often make phone calls. Same as advisors, they also barely take advantage of their workstations. The demand for communicates and collaborations is slightly lower than advisors but significantly higher than concentrators, which accounts for 25% of their work time. Employees who are aged from years, or who are middle managers, are the majority of travelers. Many of them work for stateowned enterprises. 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Working concentratively at the workstation Doing non-work-related stuff at the workstation Relaxing Working outside Making phone calls Impromptu discussion Formal meeting Traveler 27% Concentrator 19% All-rounder 33% Advisor 21% In addition to what they are and who they are, it is also critical to know the general distribution of these four types of employees. To our surprise, only 19% of white collars are concentrators that heavily rely on the workstation. All-rounders are the majority, who occupy 33% of our sample. Furthermore, 21% employees are advisors and 27% employees are travelers. This result makes us wonder if workstations are still so necessary that it is standard for every employee. When a lot of white collars work gradually gets more and more flexible and diversified, how to scientifically arrange a variety of functional spaces in the workplace will be a rather essential matter for creating an efficient working environment.

6 5/10 Mobile Working Readiness What is the readiness? We can tell from the time allocation findings that some types of employees are more flexible and less stationary than others, and some employees are more suitable for mobile working, which is the new trend of working. In order to quantify the readiness for this new way of working, we defined mobile working readiness and used this set of standard to measure and further analyze how ready they are. The most important factor is the employee s Job Nature. Employees whose work requires to be communicative and collaborative are readier for mobile working, because they seldom work alone and usually need to leave their workstations to do their jobs. The second important factor is the Organizational Culture of the company. Employees who work in a company with external-focused and result-oriented culture are readier for mobile working. They do not have to be concerned about being judged by how they work or where they work hence are more likely to be agile and flexible. The last factor is the Device Usage and Space Diversity. Employees who are intended to work with mobile devices such as laptops and tablets, are readier for mobile working. Moreover, a multifunctional workplace will facilitate mobile working on account of diversified choices provided in the space to work in different ways, according to their various work needs. Who are ready now? Based on these 3 criteria mentioned above, we compared the mobile working readiness between various groups. First of all, we found no significant differences between cities, that is, working in Shanghai should not make you readier for mobile working. The readiness of these 4 cities is about the same degree.

7 6/10 Readiness of Different Cities Shanghai Beijing Guangzhou Shenzhen Secondly, Employees of foreign-owned enterprises and joint ventures have the highest mobile working readiness, as they work in a more communicative and collaborative way, use mobile devices at work most regularly, and have the most diversified workplaces, followed by the private enterprise employees. Employees of state-owned enterprises are the least fit for mobile working due to their organizational culture. With regard to the comparisons between industries, Accommodation and Catering, IT, and Scientific Research and Polytechnic services are the top 3 industries whose employees have the highest mobile working readiness. Health Care and Social Work, Culture, Sports, and Entertainment, and Finance are on the final list of scores. Readiness of Types of Enterprise In terms of gender differences, male employees are readier for mobile working than female employees. This difference may be a complicated social phenomenon that will not be addressed here in this report. Job Nature Culture Device & Space Foreign-owned Enterprise & Joint Venture Private Enterprise State-owned Enterprise Younger = Readier? As Mobile working being a trendy and contemporary concept, people may have the consensus that this new way of working is rather suitable and applicable for younger generations. Is this true? Are younger employees readier for mobile working? As reported by our research findings, the younger the employees are, the less ready they are for mobile working. In addition, since age and job level are highly correlated with each other, we also found that readiness decreases with lower job level. Specifically, younger employees work requires less communications and collaborations, which is a universal appearance for lower level jobs. They have more concerns and limitations by virtue of company s culture. They also use mobile devices fewer frequently and have less freedom of choices of the diverse work environment.

8 7/10 Readiness of Different Job Levels Readiness of Types of Job Levels General Staff Line Middle General Staff Line Middle Senior Job Nature Culture Device & Space Senior This somewhat surprising outcome is still reasonable because we cannot value readiness and willingness as the same concept. However, mobile working is more acceptable to younger generations, but they are not necessarily ready for it on the premise of their current working conditions. Workplace Satisfaction What is the satisfaction? Further to time allocation and mobile working readiness, we also measured their attitudes and perspectives towards their current workplaces. There are 9 factors to define the satisfaction, including 1. Ambient Environment 2. Office Equipment 3. Furniture 4. Collaboration Spaces 5. Concentration Spaces 6. Sense of Density 7. Adjustable Components 8. Distraction Level 9. Overall Diversity of Space. The overall satisfaction based on the above factors sits on higher end, where Ambient Environment and Office Equipment are the most satisfied factors, and Sense of Density and Distractions are the least satisfied factors.

9 8/ Who are more satisfied? First, we made a comparison to contrast the satisfaction level between employees in 4 different cities. In general, the employees in Shenzhen and Guangzhou have higher satisfaction level than the ones in Beijing and Shanghai. The pattern can also be reflected on most of the factors. However, it is surprisingly interesting that Shanghai employees have the highest satisfaction level on Density of the workplace and Distraction Level. It s known that Shanghai has been recognized for its high density since the very beginning of the development, hence the people there are intended to be accustomed to its high density. Anyhow, employees sense of density cannot represent the real condition of their workplace. As for different types of enterprise, employees working at joint ventures are the most satisfied. Employees of wholly foreign-owned enterprise come second. Private enterprise employees are the third satisfied, and employees of state-owned enterprises are the least satisfied. Male employees are generally more satisfied with their workplaces than female. Other than that basic information, it s more amusing that the female gives more attention on the physical comfortableness of their workplaces as they have lower satisfaction on Ambient Environment, Furniture, and Adjustable Components than the male, while the male cares more about the Density and Distractions as they are less satisfied with the Sense of the Density of the workplace and Distraction Level.

10 9/10 Male Ambient Environment Furniture Adjustable Components Sense of Density Distractions Female It is notable that these findings are in line with foreign research findings. As we mentioned earlier, age and job level are positively correlated with each other, t his is still the case in workplace satisfaction. It is worth knowing that employees satisfaction increases with higher job level Another interesting finding is that employees who are using cubicles seem to be more satisfied than those who are using open benches, but this phenomenon may be due to the fact that there are no sufficient supporting facilities for employees who use benches What matters to workplace satisfaction? Among all these 9 factors, which aspects are the most critical ones that contribute to workplace satisfaction to the utmost? Will a better ambient environment always lead to a higher satisfaction level? Not necessarily. In fact, we found that the most important factor through the refined analysis is the quality and the style of the workplace Furniture, followed by Concentration Spaces, Adjustable Components, Overall Diversity of Space, Ambient Environment, Office Equipment, and Collaboration Spaces. Data is the key. It s incorrect to assume that our workplace will become a better place by speculating what is important and what is not. We cannot use one formula to solve all the problems for every employee in a company. Only with the help of the data, can we find the right recipe for a scientific, comfortable, and user-friendly workplace.

11 10/10 About ida ida Workplace + Strategy has established a positive and professional relationship with the clients for over 32 years by delivering over 1,000 projects, serving as the strategic partner by providing integrated scope of services that includes Interior Design, MEP Engineering, Construction Services. In depth, a series of customized Workplace Research Methodology is offered to define space requirements and to analyze the authentic demands scientifically in accordance with corporate visions. Additionally, a well-planned Change Management Program is in action to smoothly help the organization with the adaptation of changes, minimizing the possible impacts throughout the transformation by multiple ways of communications. About ida s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) A professioanl team that focuses on the long-term reserach of workplace behavior and environmental analysis, using scientific research methods and knowledge of cognitive psychology to conduct every research subject.