Why is the ‘office’ a big turn off for 18-24 year olds?

That will be a surprise to some (possibly many) who might assume that when jobs are hard to come by, young people should just be grateful for any opportunity – and anyway, what’s wrong with our offices? Everyone knows what an office looks like don’t they, why would anyone be so put off by ‘superficial’ design and what exactly are these amenities that are missing? After all, office are places to ‘work’, and amenities are surely just a distraction from concentration and productivity.

If this is your reaction, then you really do need a rethink. If this is your reaction and you are recruiting, then you need more than a rethink, you need a total rewire of your perception not just about modern office design, but of what the purpose of an office is and why redesigning the office as a workplace is one of the best motivation investments an organisation can make.

First of all, let’s look at the design of the typical office on offer and the reasons why so many younger people don’t want to work in them. Very often it all starts to go wrong even before they’ve got inside the building. Whilst there are of course still some quirky buildings around, the average commercial office developer, property advisor and city planner still assume that all aspiring organisations need the same thing: large scale glass, concrete and steel buildings clustered together in business districts of a city centre. The blue print for these buildings is pretty much the same as in the 1980s – big open plan floorplates with management offices peppered around the perimeter, flat suspended ceilings, artificial lighting and commercial furniture and furnishings.

Clean, clear and generic. But individuality and personal needs have to be abandoned at the front door of such buildings, and explicit dress codes set aside those that work in such buildings from everyone else. This smacks of the corporate culture that is such a turn-off for younger generations.