This finding was part of the recently released Gensler 2013 U.S. Workplace Survey, and I am confident that should the survey be conducted on our own sunny shores, South Africa's workforce would be equally, if not more dissatisfied with their work environment.
The survey looks at how the design of the workplace impacts performance, employee engagement and innovation, and the researchers, unsurprisingly, state that there are numerous forces that are changing the way we work.
Technology, globalisation and a "new generation" (as if we are the first workforce to have one) are leading this change. "The confluence of these forces is resulting in new performance drivers for today's workplace and a series of new and exciting questions about what the workplace is - and more importantly - what it should be," it states.
The stating of the obvious continues: "Today's knowledge work happens not just at the scale of people and offices, but at the scale of buildings, cities and ultimately the globe. It is in this context that we continue to explore questions of focus, balance and choice in today's and tomorrow's, high performance work environments."
It supports this with a graph showing that laptop ownership in the U.S. has increased by 22% in the last four years and tablet ownership by 31% in the last three years. Shock.
So, if it is all so bleeding obvious, why pay attention? Research of this nature is important for two reasons. Firstly, it provides evidence to support the obvious, and secondly, it highlights just how many companies see the obvious, yet do nothing about it.
Seventy five per cent of American companies are clearly ignoring the obvious - they know that globalisation and technology are rapidly changing the workplace, yet are doing little, or nothing with this knowledge.
In addition to identifying America's struggling workforce, the survey offers two other key findings, firstly, that "effective workplaces balance focus and collaboration", and that "choice drives performance and innovation".
The first of these key findings again presents us with nothing remarkably new. Collaboration has been extensively researched as an important work activity for the past 20 years and we know an awful lot about it. We also know the value of focused work and individual thought and development. Clearly an effective work environment needs to support both these activities.
However, Gensler now offers us evidence to support what we already knew and we can now, with confidence say that balanced workplaces are more creative and innovative.
For example, 78% of balanced workplaces have creative thinkers, while only 52% of unbalanced workplaces have creative thinkers; and in companies that have balanced workplaces, employees "indicate that their spaces are 22% more effective for collaboration compared with workplaces that don't support both."
The impact of balanced environments, states the report, "is felt beyond just work mode effectiveness. These respondents also see their companies as more innovative; are more satisfied with their jobs and workplace environments; and their workplaces ?are more effective overall as measured by Gensler's ?WPI. They are also more likely to rank their companies highly on creativity and innovation."
The third key finding of the survey, that choice drives performance and innovation, is potentially more interesting. Here Gensler finds that "Employers who provide a spectrum of choices for when and where to work are seen as more innovative and have higher-performing employees."
Although, much has been written about the mobile and agile workforces, Gensler manages here to provide some powerful metrics that clearly indicate the importance of offering staff an element of control over when and where they work.
According to the research, "employers who offer choice in when and where to work have workers who are 12% more satisfied with their job and report higher effectiveness scores across all work modes": innovation, job performance, job satisfaction and workplace satisfaction.
Employees without this choice, however, "report organisational policy as the primary limit to their workplace autonomy and are also less likely to have the tools that support mobility and anywhere working".
In South Africa, the idea of a mobile or agile workforce seems to be the one new way of working the idea that is met with the most resistance, despite (as again highlighted here) its proven benefits.
South African employees, in general, it seems, are traditionalists and want to see bums on seats between 8am and 5pm. Working from home is akin to taking leave. After all, if you can't see your staff, how are you supposed to manage them? Hopefully research such as this will change this trend.
However, perhaps the best finding to come from Gensler's research is that it is clear how badly we need to look at the workplace with a far more critical eye. Companies who have, over the years, taken cognizance of workplace theory are far more likely to succeed than companies who have not.
Yet research also needs to look deeper into the workplace and move away from the obvious, the regurgitated, and the limited in scope.
We need to take the traditional catchphrases of "collaboration", "culture", "gender", "generation" "ergonomics", sustainability" and others and start doing research that offers companies data that promotes real change on levels we previously have not understood - everything else is simply horizontal movement.
Companies also need to use global research as a tool that helps them mould their workspace to ensure increased staff satisfaction and productivity.
But it is a tool that should be used in conjunction with data garnered from the organisation itself: information not on global trends but on exactly what its own workforces' desire and wish for and how effective their workspace is at ensuring satisfaction and productivity.
