Why Employees Create Workarounds

Nathan Bricklin
6 hours ago
2 min read

The First 15 Minutes (Part 3)

One thing I pay close attention to in workplaces is the workarounds employees create.

The workarounds themselves usually point to something underneath the surface that isn’t working as smoothly as it should.

Over time, employees become remarkably good at adapting to friction.

They learn which conference rooms actually connect reliably. They avoid certain neighborhoods because they know the noise level makes focus difficult. They reserve the same desks repeatedly because those spaces consistently support the kind of work they need to do. Some employees leave personal items behind on shared desks in the hopes that others will assume the space is occupied.

Eventually, these behaviors just become part of how people navigate the workplace.

What’s interesting is that organizations sometimes interpret these workarounds as preference or habit, when more often, they’re signals about reliability and trust in the environment.

People naturally gravitate toward spaces, tools, and routines that reduce uncertainty.

If one area consistently works better than another, employees will keep returning to it. If certain meeting rooms always have technical issues, people will avoid booking them. If support requests take too long to resolve, teams start solving problems on their own however they can.

When you pay attention, all of these behaviors provide valuable feedback.

Employees are showing the organization where friction exists and where the workplace is or isn’t supporting their work effectively.

The challenge is that many of these patterns develop quietly over time. Because employees adapt, the underlying issues can become normalized and much less visible to leadership.

That’s one reason observation matters so much in workplace experience work.

Surveys and feedback sessions are useful but simply watching how people move through the environment often reveals things employees no longer think to mention.

Which spaces stay empty? Which spaces are constantly occupied? Which tools do people bypass? Which processes do they avoid?

The workarounds tell the story.

Nathan Bricklin

Senior Consultant, Global Workplace Experience

Helping enterprise leaders close the gap between executive intent and lived employee experience at scale.

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