Less Than Half of Office Workers Say Their Desk Helps Them Perform — and the Tech Isn't Helping Either

Surveys by M.O.O.CON and Logitech question office upgrades as Mercedes-Benz weighs four office days and Hamburg plans desk-sharing.

Two new surveys released a day apart paint an uncomfortable picture for companies betting big on shiny office upgrades: the buildings may be changing faster than the evidence that they work.

On 23 September 2026, the consultancy M.O.O.CON published findings from its "Büro-Liebe" ("Office Love") study, based on responses from 1,024 office employees. Just 45 percent of them see a direct contribution from the physical office to their own performance. Managing director Sabine Zinke pointed out that the office's real strength lies in collaboration, social cohesion and informal exchange.

Hybrid schedules, the consultancy noted, produce usage rates that swing widely — which is why simply cutting square metres falls short as a strategy. Christoph Müller-Thiede, managing partner at M.O.O.CON, argued that the office becomes more efficient when organisations treat it as infrastructure for performance and innovation. That requires structured usage analysis, multifunctional zones and demand-driven desk sharing.

The hardware problem

A separate Logitech "Workplace Experience Study" zeroes in on the technical side of the equation. Among its respondents, 85 percent linked a high-quality workplace experience to greater productivity, and 87 percent to better collaboration.

Yet only 28 percent of organisations treat this as a core part of their business strategy, and just 47 percent of German decision-makers have the profitability data to back up their choices. Even more striking: only 20 percent of German organisations bring IT and media technology teams in before space planning begins.

The costs of getting it wrong are measurable. When technical problems disrupt meetings, the median productivity loss comes to 12.2 minutes per person per incident. Three in ten IT managers report outages of 16 minutes or more. Serkan Ates, who heads Logitech DACH, called for technical capability, actual usage and employee experience to be managed together rather than in isolation.

Attendance rules tighten as remote work beds in

How much presence employers can demand is being renegotiated across the country. At Mercedes-Benz Group, a draft works agreement would let managers require full-time staff to be in the office up to four days a week — with no obligation to justify the request.

At the same time, the "Flexible Working" study presented on 24 September 2026 by Deloitte and the University of Graz shows how deeply location-independent work has taken hold. In seven of ten surveyed companies, at least half the workforce can in principle work remotely, with two to three home-office days a week being typical.

The strain is showing, though. While 86 percent of employees want more support against digital stress and overload, only 17 percent of companies currently offer such programmes.

The public sector is adjusting too. Hamburg's Senate has decided to shrink the city's office space by up to 20 percent by 2040, phasing out fixed desks in favour of desk-sharing.