More than 81% of respondents think they will be working in a hybrid or office-only system in 2022, while only 11% think their employer will still opt for the team to continue to work remotely starting January, although the pandemic continues to evolve and health risks remain high. In this context, more and more people feel the need for their office to adapt to today’s needs and provide them with a better and safer place to work.

Thus, more than half of employees in Romania (55%) are expecting a radical transformation of company offices next year, and most of them want to see an improvement in terms of sanitary systems (61.5%) and interior spaces specifically designed to foster well-being (47.5%) and safe team collaboration (37.8%). At the same time, two-thirds of employees would like to have more natural light inside workspaces and more green areas around buildings, two ways to boost creativity and reduce workplace stress.

“Nearly two years after the start of the pandemic, more and more Romanians have become more optimistic about their career prospects as the vaccination campaign accelerated this fall and a significant part returned at least partially to the office. Thus, almost three quarters of employees believe that 2022 will bring favorable developments in their working lives, a natural indicator of people’s growing confidence in the economy and in mitigating the effects of the pandemic next year”, says Teodor Stoica, Human Resources Manager at Genesis Property.

Nearly three quarters of employees believe their careers will improve in 2022. The outlook is also supported by their perception regarding the evolution of the company where they work, with 47.1% appreciating it will be favorable in 2022 and 24.4% expecting it to be very good, in a context in which 33% of them believe that Romania’s economy will also be on an upward trend next year.

Healthy workplaces increasingly important when choosing a job
Employee demands regarding workspaces remain significant. For example, around a third of employees want to see touchless technologies in their offices for greater safety and comfort and logistical systems to quickly help in case of health risks to employees.

Many of the measures that employees in Romania want are also recommended by IMMUNE Building Standard™, a certification for healthy buildings developed by  the Romanian company Genesis Property in 2020 precisely to assess, certify and monitor the health of indoor spaces. The standard is based on 135 consistent criteria that provide building owners or companies with the necessary tools to monitor and adjust the health of workplaces.

The Genesis Property survey on employees’ perception of buildings’ health was conducted nationwide in September – October 2021 via the iVox platform on a total sample of 1,100 internet users in Romania. Almost 54% of participants are women, more than 50% are aged between 25 and 40, and 53% have a net income of more than 3,000 lei.