Calling staff back to the office means little without a workplace ready for them
AJ Produkti board member Zane Beķere argues that calls for employees to return to offices often overlook whether workplaces have actually been adapted for full-time in-person work, after many were redesigned for hybrid setups. A survey found many Latvian workers still consider their workspace inadequate.
A debate is underway in Latvia about returning to regular office routines, fuelled partly by Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs' public suggestion that remote work practices in public administration should be reconsidered, as he doubts remote work's effectiveness and believes only a small share of people are disciplined enough to work productively from home. A similar shift is visible in the private sector, where companies are increasingly revisiting hybrid work models and asking staff to be present more often in person.
Zane Beķere, a board member at AJ Produkti, argues in a commentary that this discussion overlooks a key question: whether employers actually have a workplace ready for people to return to and work productively in. In recent years, many companies redesigned their offices specifically for hybrid work, cutting the number of permanent workstations — for example, providing only 75 desks for 100 employees on the assumption not everyone would be in the office at once. If in-person work now becomes the norm again, simply adding more desks isn't enough — shared workstations need to be both neutral enough for different users and easily adjustable to each person.
Find the problem before the furniture
Beķere says companies should first understand what work is actually done in a given space and what gets in the way of doing it efficiently, before looking for solutions in layout, ergonomics, acoustics or work organization. This applies not only to offices but also to factories, warehouses and retail spaces, where remote work has never been a realistic option.
A survey conducted by AJ Produkti together with research center Norstat found that only 51% of Latvia's population consider their workplace ergonomic and comfortable for daily work, while just 41% believe their employer pays sufficient attention to workplace quality.
Based on the company's client experience, offices often see rising fatigue and difficulty concentrating among staff, issues that have been eased through space redesigns, acoustic panels and dedicated quiet rooms. In manufacturing and warehouse settings, the company has also helped address back pain caused by physically demanding work by fitting appropriate industrial chairs and rearranging workstations to reduce unnecessary bending, reaching and heavy lifting.
