This industry-wide survey was developed to assess the impact on current projects and business performance, identify challenges professionals are facing and gather insights for advancing the profession during this time.
We remain resilient even in the face of uncertainty.
We continue to have concerns, but we will collectively find a way to solve them.
We embrace change to meet the needs of our clients.
We still have more to do to fully recover as a profession.
*This page reports on the comprehensive results from all the Pulse Surveys. For statistical accuracy, results compare surveys that had included the project status question during the first six months of the ASID COVID-19 Pulse Surveys (Phase #1: April 14, June 23, July 28, August 25, 2020), the following six months (Phase #2: October 6, 2020, January 5, and April 7, 2021), and most recent one (March 29, 2022).
Overall, there has been a downward trajectory in the level of concern. When examining the average, it has fallen roughly 0.60 each time (Phase #1: 3.84 → Phase #2: 3.14 → Phase #3: 2.51). At the beginning of the pandemic, the interior design community understandably had major concerns on how COVID-19 would impact them professionally as shown in Phase #1. As we moved through 2021, concerns began to subside, but remained. Now, in Phase #3, the narrative has somewhat changed as we are seeing an inverse in sentiment with a fourth of respondents indicating no concern. Even though concerns are not completely gone since the largest percentage category is in the middle (3), this category has only seen minimal increases. Additionally, those indicating no concern in Phase #3 have more than tripled from Phase #2, eight times higher than in Phase #1.
Phase #1
Phase #2
Phase #3
Phase #1
Phase #2
Phase #3
The industry has seen its major concerns evolve over the course of the Pulse Survey, which validate bigger trends that have been seen in the larger economy. Phase #1 for both designers and manufacturers/retailers focused on maintaining their business and engaging their stakeholders. As shown in Phase #2, supply chain concerns began to materialize with this concern being top in Phase #3. Nevertheless, each group had a new concern emerge in their respective top three during Phase #3 that was not present in previous phases (Designers: Project timelines; Manufacturers/Retailers: Employee retention).
While business development was a major concern in Phase #1 for both groups, it has slowly diminished, falling in importance in Phase #2, and completely dropping out of the top three in the last phase. Each group had one concern that remained in the top three across all three phases; for designers, it was product availability while for manufacturers/retailers, it was client/industry engagement.
Specifically for designers, an interesting connection emerged: each “new” concern helped explain another. In Phase #1, concerns around product availability began to surface. In Phase #2, procurement/delivery became a “new” issue thanks in large part to the increased concern over product availability. As anxiety around procurement/delivery and product availability remained, Phase #3 saw the emergence of project timelines as a concern, showing the connection between each through the Pulse Survey.
As one might infer from the section header, this question has seen the most change, or variance, when compared to the others within the survey, highlighting a prime example of how the pandemic has impacted the office environment and the way we work. When evaluating the lowest (‘No impact (Business as usual)’) and highest (‘Significant impact (Major adjustments were made)’) options over the phases, an interesting trend emerged; while not at the same rate, when one increased, the other decreased. During Phase #3, ‘No impact’ saw its lowest percentage, and ‘Significant impact’ saw its highest percentage since the second Pulse Survey (April 14, 2020): the dichotomy in this phase could be explained by the increase in the number of workers beginning to return to the office (RTO) and a desire for designers to perform more work in-person with their clients.
*Note: The survey question is: “Compared to xxx ago, how has work changed for you?.” The language of this question would change, where ‘xxx’ would be the time in between surveys. For example, for the April 14, 2020 survey, the time would be ‘two weeks’ while the survey on March 29, 2022 would be ‘one year’.
While there are many firms within the interior design profession that have fully recovered from the business and economic effects of the pandemic, COVID-19 continues to have lingering consequences on the industry since the recovery is not entirely complete as of April 2022. When ‘Already Recovered’ was introduced as an option in Phase #2, the distribution came from those respondents who indicated less than six months (‘Less than a month’, ‘1-3 months’, ‘3-6 months’); a similar pattern occurred when a ‘No change’ option was added in Phase #3. On the other hand, around one-fifth of respondents consistently stated that it would take at least six months to fully recover (Phase #1: 19% → Phase #2: 21% → Phase #3: 24%). This suggests that there is still work that needs to be done to help the entire profession recover from the impact of COVID-19.
Like a rollercoaster, it has been a bumpy ride for anyone connected to the interior design profession, with uncertainty on multiple fronts creating a mixed outlook. There have been two sides of the story during the pandemic for design professionals: there are those who have recovered quickly and have been able to succeed, while others see their recovery as a long-term proposition, still wading through the mire as the pandemic persists. The concerns among designers and manufacturers/retailers were similar throughout the survey; ‘Business development’ and ‘Engagement’ came up in the beginning, and even though designers experienced supply chain issues much earlier, ‘Product availability’ is a concern felt across the board today.
Nevertheless, the overall level of concern has been diminishing over time, indicating that the interior design profession is normalizing to a certain extent, with designers displaying continued resiliency in the face of turmoil. However, this does not suggest that things are returning to “normal" and we cannot revert to how things were before the pandemic. We need to organize, plan, and act together to ensure that everyone connected to this profession can not only survive but thrive as COVID-19 continues to (hopefully) fade away.
A total of 1,304 responses from designers (76% of responses were from business owners) and 181 from employees of manufacturers and retailers were collected from 8 surveys used in this ASID COVID-19 Pulse Survey 2020-2022 Review analysis. Respondents closely represent the industry when comparing interior designer characteristics reported of the population by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2021; however, they slightly under-represent the West and over-represent in the Midwest across all phases. Total survey respondents over-represent small firms (i.e., self-employed and firms with less than 10 employees).
| Census Region | ASID Pulse Survey | Interior Design Population | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phase #1 | Phase #2 | Phase #3 | ||
| Midwest | 22% | 22% | 27% | 18% |
| Northeast | 15% | 16% | 22% | 19% |
| South | 41% | 37% | 31% | 37% |
| West | 22% | 25% | 20% | 26% |
| Total | 100% | 100% | ||
| Number of Employees | ASID Pulse Survey | Interior Design Population | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phase #1 | Phase #2 | Phase #3 | ||
| Self-employed | 45% | 41% | 48% | 57% |
| 2-9 employee firm | 36% | 39% | 27% | |
| 10-99 employee firm | 12% | 13% | 21% | 33% |
| 100+ employee firm | 7% | 7% | 4% | 10% |
| Total | 100% | 100% | ||
| Number of Years | ASID Pulse Survey | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase #1 | Phase #2 | Phase #3 | |
| 0-5 years | 11% | 7% | 8% |
| 6-10 years | 8% | 12% | 6% |
| 11-20 years | 23% | 22% | 20% |
| 21-30 years | 20% | 20% | 19% |
| 31-40 years | 25% | 21% | 29% |
| 40+ years | 13% | 18% | 18% |
| Total | 100% | ||
| Space Type | ASID Pulse Survey | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase #1 | Phase #2 | Phase #3 | |
| Education (K-12, Higher Ed) | 5% | 5% | 6% |
| Government | 3% | 5% | 5% |
| Healthcare & Senior/Assisted Living | 11% | 12% | 11% |
| Hospitality | 8% | 7% | 5% |
| Multi-family residential | 9% | 10% | 8% |
| Office/Branded environments | 15% | 17% | 19% |
| Retail & Entertainment | 6% | 4% | 9% |
| Single-family residential (incl. Kitchen & Bath) |
43% | 40% | 37% |
| Total | 100% | ||