Will We Be Going Back to the Same Office?

Will We be Going Back to the Same Office?

As Lockdown starts to ease across the UK and the rest of the world, people are looking forward to being un-furloughed and going back to work. Some of us are even looking forward to getting in to the office!

But will we be going back to the office at all, and if we do, will it be the same?

Many companies have realized that their workforce is just as productive at home as they are in the office, even when working around homeschooling, and it seems prescient that a vast majority of the workforce will continue to work from home, or be allowed the flexibility to work from home when they need to, and plan around family and caring commitments.

So what does that mean for the office space? “We’ve been talking to numerous clients and the majority believe there will continue to be a need for offices in the future, but how we design a shared space and use it will certainly be different,” says Nicky Wightman, Director of Savills Occupier Trends.

In a chat with Nicky we touched on the topic that lots of office landlords are asking, which is: are companies going to downsize to smaller offices? This might be because they’ve had to let staff go and so need less space, but it might also just be because there won’t be as many staff in the office. However, there’s no crystal ball to predict this at the moment.

As for the future of co-working spaces, Nicky was quick to point out that she expects the sector may even benefit from any long term uncertainty as companies accelerate their use of flexible space in their portfolio. What we might see happening is that companies may buy coworking memberships for their staff to have a “hub” which they can go to when they need, instead of having an office space at all.

Coworking spaces might lead to satellite offices, which would negate the need for staff to commute into London as well. If the company knows it has a large amount of staff commuting in from Kent or Peterborough, they may well find a small office space in a town here for their staff, to be used flexibly.

Nicola Phillips at Peldon Rose (an office design company in London) has already had these conversations with clients. They appear to be consolidating space in the center of London, and looking into smaller satellite offices. This will take agile working to the next level, where not only will staff have the option of different types of spaces in which to work, but they’ll also have the option of working from home, the headquarters, the satellite office, or even from the car when doing the school pickup if staff are offered flexible working.

This new approach makes sense when we consider that for some time to come we’ll need to continue social distancing. Being given the option to work flexibly from different locations enables this, and also means that people don’t have to risk their health on the overcrowded trains and busses that commute us into the major cities.

Companies with greater flexibility and foresight are already looking into what they can do for their staff when they work at home. Aside from the laptop, there are other benefits on offer such as gym memberships, osteopathic consultations, gift vouchers for office snacks (to be had at home) and discounts on plants. Art in Offices has launched a print subscription offering to address this need, which allows companies to rent art for their staff at home, to enrich their space.

So we may be leaving the traditional office life behind — what the Parisians call “Metro, Boulot, Dodo” (roughly translated as commute, work, sleep or “live to work”), and moving out of the formal office space, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up the benefits and community that came with it.