Not everyone likes working at home. I hated it. Home is my sanctuary not my place of work. Those business leaders are not going to sit and leave an office costing them upwards of 150k a year empty. .. Nor will local authorities allow their office space investments to remain empty. So physical offices will always exist regardless of role. Whether they are staffed to the same degree is a different question altogether.
Not commuting - or at least vastly reducing the commuting requirements from 5 to 1-2 days a week will go a long way towards reducing our pollution (as a country), save every employee the cost of their commuting (and any bought lunches/snacks/coffees) and give employees much more flexibility in terms of their work-life balance. It probably isn't so bad for us, but plenty in London commute 2 hours each way *everyday* to sit in an office to do things they could do from home. And why does a business need to pay £150k per year for a large office when it could pay £50k for a much smaller one that is sized correctly. Yes, some staff would prefer to work from an office, but many don't.
Then a lot of our pensions will be worth even less than they are now. . . You'll be surprised how many are tied to commercial property investments. At one point a lot of Cheapside was owned by Aviva...
Yeah I can see the office being a thing of the past. People can work from home with their internet and do any conference calls from there too. Old office buildings and retail units will disappear to developers. Take here in Kirklees where Huddersfield town centre has a handful of roads being made unavailable to vehicles to make the centre more green and encourage cycling. Boris this week has cut red tape in building which will make it easier to switch the use of a unit. We are on our way to town/city centres being more like a village in the future. Less cars, old shops being made in to an house or flat and less shops needed due to online shopping habits. Kirklees are knocking down a whole shopping area called Piaza to make it a green area for concerts and more of a town centre park area for picnics and family time.
Wife's just been told her jobs at risk she's been furloughed for 3 months despite the company she works for carrying on working as normal in most respects. Some companies are using the furlough scheme as a government funded experiment to see how few staff they can get away with employing and still get the work done by overloading those still working with work. If you've still got a job when this is all over consider yourself fortunate because Millions are going to lose theirs.
Lack of offices will disadvantage the poor even more though. Not everyone has the space for a home office. Hopefully there will be more flexible working adopted though.
Commuting to Sheffield more than twice a week.. doesnt save you money. The snacks you buy at work.. you still have to buy at home. You just replace your Greggs with a home made butty. Thats the price of the office.. depending on quality and area. It can be up to about £15 per square foot a month. And a successful company will grow out of a small office and need to upscale. And how many do you think are in the middle of a 5 year lease? Do you think the freeholder is going to let them escape the contract?
Do you really think that all those businesses will call all their staff back to work rather than just saving the cash?
Donny Red Ltd has signed a lease for a 5000sq foot office on 1st July 2019 for 5 years. Donny Red Ltd is paying £8 a sq foot per month. . . Plus rates. Plus running costs. Plus service charges. Do you see Donny Red ltd being allowed out of the lease without a massive financial penalty?
As it’s Donny Red’s second largest business cost, it might well be worth paying the penalty if he’s realised that his staff are more productive at home. Or he might reorganise the space to make room for the people he definitely needs in work, and sub let the rest to his mates who are also downsizing. BTW I’m informed it’ll be a year at least before I see my desk again (someone else is in it now), I’m not being completely hypothetical.
No. He works from home now. He said so. Working from home is the future. Offices are definitely a thing of the past.
It's got to have other benefits as well JV. Particularly thinking of pollution from vehicles as one example. My youngest son who works for the Home Office has been working from home since mid April. He's been kitted out with a PC with access to the main frame, a printer and a separate landline. He is able to choose the hours he wants to work and at the end of the day his work load and output is examined by his line manager. He was surprised that they appeared to have paid him £150 above his anticipated monthly salary and when he enquired, he was told that it was a bonus to reward the extra hours he had voluntarily worked and the comments taken from customer satisfaction questionnaires regarding his output/ hit rate. He was telling me yesterday that he wouldn't mind if he never had to go into the central offices in Wakefield ever again.
