Key insights from the
Future of Work @ UZH Mobile Work Survey 2022

December 2022

The UZH Mobile Work Survey was open for three weeks in June and July 2022 for all UZH employees to voice their opinions and ideas about mobile working. We asked about employees’ experiences with mobile working before the pandemic, their personal wishes for the future, and how they expect their work to be within the 60-40 regulation of UZH (introduced on May 1st).  

Here, we highlight three key results that are also interesting for other organizations.  

1. The 60-40 model introduced at the University of Zurich is a success; employees ask for full flexibility

The University of Zurich – as most other organizations – experiences a significant increase in mobile working compared to before the pandemic. Our survey shows that the 60-40 model is a good fit to employees’ preferences for future working (Figure 1). Employees’ satisfaction with their working model increased compared to before the pandemic by on average 7%-points. Most employees prefer a fully flexible model, as part of which mobile working is possible at the employees’ own discretion provided that supervisors and operative necessities allow for such flexibility.  
Employees expect positive consequences of the 60-40 model mostly for employer attractivity, employee satisfaction and productivity, but more neutral consequences for leadership and the culture of UZH.  

What can you take away from these findings?  
Mobile working is here to stay, and most employees want flexibility in remote working with opportunities for both, remote and on-site working.  

2. Balance is needed between social interaction and focused work to enhance employees’ well-being, learning, and productivity

In our survey, we asked employees how they want to feel at work. The most preferred emotion is “appreciated,” across all groups of employees. Interestingly, employees indicated that working on campus fosters feelings of appreciation and inclusion better than mobile working, whereas mobile working provides a better fit to feeling focused and content.  

Going further into detail, we asked employees about their reasons for wanting to work on-site. The most important reason both within the 60-40 working model and by personal preference for the future (see Figure 2) was the opportunity for social interaction on campus – this was mentioned more frequently than operational necessities or access to infrastructure. This result indicates the importance of interacting with others for employees’ positive work experience.

In addition, when we asked employees about how they envision their office of the future, their Top-1 priority was office space that provides opportunities to focus, and their Top-2 priority were spaces that foster collaboration and connectedness. Many open comments in the survey support the notion that what employees need most for their work is a balance between social interaction and focused work.  

What can you take away from these findings?
Mobile working and working on site foster different feelings and thus satisfy different employee needs. Employees value both social interactions and focused work. This has implications for workplace design in any organization. Lead questions include “How can a campus be designed to make people feel appreciated and included, and how can it allow for focus and concentration at work?” 

3. Mobile Working requires good leadership

Overall, the survey findings indicate that mobile working can be successful when supported by leaders. However, employees report that only three out of four leaders support mobile working yet, although technology and knowledge for mobile working are readily available. 

We asked employees to tell us what the University can do to help them feel like they want to feel at work. Employees say they need leaders who support mobile working in both allowing for flexibility to ensure focus, work-life balance and productivity, and in creating structures that foster social interaction, exchange and creativity. Leaders, feedback and individual workplaces are main factors for conveying the appreciation that employees want to experience at work (see Figure 3).

What can you take away from these findings? 
Remote working requires good leadership, and yet there is a risk that people feel under-led and over-managed when they work remotely. Organizations need to help leaders to understand the opportunities inherent in new working models and how to leverage them in adapting to the requirements that come along with these working models. Leaders also need flexibility to find decentralized solutions with and for their teams that ultimately allow for the best delivery of the organizations’ objectives (in the case of universities, research and education).  

A detailed report on the survey results is available on request for UZH employees. Please mail to futureofwork@business.uzh.ch.