Where do workers prefer to work at the age of remote work? A survey analysis in the Parisian area

The financialization of the Parisian office real estate market has led office users to become tenants, leaving the propriety to some big foreign investors. The latter need to reduce as much as possible the vacancy rate of the building in order to maximize their rent and to obtain an added value on the sale. However, the pandemic with the spread of telecommuting has reminded tenants that offices must meet the needs of their employees who are the end users (Gupta.2022) in order to bring them back to the office for the sake of integration and employee retention. The location is a significant criterion to attract new talents (Florida and Adler.2019). The study of Business Location Decisions has highlighted the role of quality of life as a Business Location Factor (Glaser and Bardo.1991; Love and Crompton.1999), especially for firms of the so-called “New Economy”, whose main input is the knowledge instead of natural resources. Studying office location strategies inevitably requires an interest in the people who occupy them. This study aims to assess which location factors are crucial for workers through a survey analysis. Whereas most of academic papers are based on business decision-makers at a regional scale to measure the quality of life, we want to study workers ‘preferences within the Parisian area at the neighbourhood scale in order to work on more specific local factors. To do so, we collect data from a representative sample of workers from Ile-de-France. In a first part, we want to assess the impact of the daily living concerns (public transports, safety, cost of living) and the quality of life (green spaces, visual image, atmosphere, entertainments, and environmental quality) on the satisfaction of employees about the neighbourhood where they work. Do amenities matter as much as firms think? In a second part, we ask them about their remote work habits because they could induce a mediating effect on their location preferences. Can we suppose than remote workers and non-remote workers have different expectations about public transport accessibility or entertainments? In a last part, we ask them about their sociodemographic profile. We know that workers ‘preferences vary between the age, the family situation, or the level of qualification. Finally, do amenities matter as much as firms think? Maybe the best place for workers is in fact the one closest to their house…