IS THE OFFICE A THING OF THE PAST
WFH HAS BOOMED DURING LOCKDOWN – BUT IT’S NOT FOR EVERYONE, FINDS ROSIE MURRAY-WEST
WHAT are the true costs of ‘work-from-home’ Britain? Debate still rages over whether we should all be heading back to the office, or whether it is more responsible to stay at home.
Whatever we decide will affect the economy, the businesses we work for and our own productivity and wellbeing. Foreign secretary
Dominic Raab declared earlier this month that the economy needs us to go back to work, while the Confederation for British Industry (CBI) has warned that our city centres will become ‘ghost towns’ if workers do not return to their offices.
But many believe working from home is here to stay. Plenty want to continue their WFH lifestyle, and with worries over rising coronavirus cases and problems with testing availability, the dash back to the office doesn’t look like such a good idea.
‘With areas such as the City of London and Midtown Manhattan resembling ghost towns, it’s clear that governments need to find innovative ways to boost the new economy, rather than pining for the old one,’ says Ben Taylor, who founded the HomeWorkingClub. ‘The future of work looks different now, so we need to build around that, not try and push back to a version of “normal” that no longer fits.’
As the battle lines are drawn between the ‘stay-at-homers’ and the office-lovers, we consider the costs of both and potential economic effects.
THE STATE WE’RE IN
Statistics suggest that the return to traditional working patterns is quite slow. At the height of the pandemic, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), almost half of us were doing some work at home. By August, only a third of white-collar workers had returned to the office according to analysis by Morgan Stanley, with UK workers returning far more slowly than counterparts in France and Italy. Figures from Sky News in late August suggested only one in six of those who had been home working before was back in the office at that point.
Studies show that many of us don’t wish to go back, with a recent survey from the HomeWorkingClub showing that one in three who can’t work from home now are planning to change job so that they can. Eighty-eight per cent of those surveyed believe the working world had changed forever, with 90 per cent saying that the Covid-19 pandemic has removed barriers to working remotely.
But our decision to do this changes the way we spend, and has a knock-on effect for local businesses. Sandwich chain Pret A Manger has already announced that it will have to cut 3,000 jobs in the UK.
Meanwhile, business analyst Keith Bowman, from Interactive Investor, reckons that less-central businesses, such as pastry chain Greggs, could benefit from a less city-centric workforce. ‘A diverse location of stores, some near to industrial estates and less impacted than offices, work to its advantage,’ he says.
Similarly, while owners of big office spaces may struggle, those who offer smaller co-working businesses may benefit, as customers hire event space or desks on a less permanent basis near to home. Beth Hampson, who runs London co-working space provider The Argyll Group, says business is brisk. ‘We’ve seen use of our day offices rise significantly, as well as the number of professionals renting dedicated desks in the city. It’s typically been teams of four or five people convening in meeting rooms, or one-on-one sessions taking place in business lounges.
‘It boils down to relationships. People really want to work with their colleagues again, not via Zoom or over the phone, but in real life, and they’re using safe spaces to do so.’
We catch up with a number of business owners to find out how their working preferences have changed.
SCRAPPING THE OFFICE IS HARD ON THE YOUNG
Jimmy Williams, CEO of insurance group Urban Jungle (myurbanjungle. com) has already got half of his staff working back in the office and looks forward to it being back at full strength. He says that while working from home is popular with older owner-occupiers, it’s a hard ask for ‘Generation Rent’, who make up the bulk of the firm’s 200,000 customers and staff.
I don’t think scrapping the office is a good thing for a lot of younger staff. They tend to live in quite small flats or shared houses in town, and these aren’t always great for
home working. They also like the sociability of being in a workplace. We have a lot of parties and social events, and it’ll be great to be doing a lot of those things again.
‘I know that a lot of larger tech companies, like Twitter, have said that they’re ditching the office and the entire team are going to work remotely. But I don’t think that would work for us at Urban Jungle. We are a challenger brand and there’s a sense that we are storming the castle. ‘Because of this, I think building a sense of team is really important. We need to be together under the same roof some of the time to build that sense of togetherness. We have a good company culture and I don’t want that to slip away.’
I WOULD ALWAYS CHOOSE PEOPLE OVER AN OFFICE’
Charlotte Nichols is the owner of content management and PR agency Harvey & Hugo (harveyandhugo.com). Their Darlington office had nine staff working there before. Charlotte says working from home has afforded her colleagues a better work/life balance and giving up the office seemed a sensible solution to deal with spiralling costs at a difficult time. ‘Working from home had been going really well for us. The lease on our office came up in August, so we decided to give notice. In uncertain times, I wanted to protect the people within my business, and if I had to choose between a salary and an office, I’d always keep the people. To me, that’s not a difficult choice to make.
‘Increased productivity due to lack of commuting or travel to meetings means more flexible hours are possible to work around school runs, midday walks and even getting household tasks completed, such as vacuuming or putting washing on the line, freeing up weekends for family time and hobbies.
‘We are naturally set up for remote working, thanks to laptops and online programmes such as Teams, meaning communication is as strong as it ever was.
‘Each month, I host two half-day sessions in venues around the area so we can connect in person. These give us a chance to catch up and bond as a team. It also means we’re still supporting restaurants, hotels and other venues to help the economy.’
’I AM SAVING TIME AND MONEY’
Afsaneh Parvizi-Wayne runs femtech companies Freda and Modern Menopause (myfreda.com). After working from home, she never wants things to go back to how they were.
‘I save around 2.5 hours of commute time every day and around £10 a day on buying my sandwich and a couple of drinks,’ she says. ‘I have the flexibility of working the hours that suit the business and me. I work in different time zones and therefore can start later and answer emails later if I had to. I get to walk my dog early in the morning before work, and Honey, my cockapoo, makes sure I take the breaks I need with her wanting to go in the garden, etc.’
‘My tips are: allocate one area in your home as your working space and stick to it. I’m lucky that we have a box room which is now my office and I love it. I have it organised exactly as I want it. I never want to go back.’
‘MY NEW OFFICE SAVES MY SANITY’
Lockdown drove Lynsey Pollard, who runs a subscription business, (littleboxofbooks.co.uk), back to office life.
‘I’ve been working from home since I launched the business in 2018. My partner is an IT consultant and also works from home,’ she explains. ‘During lockdown, like everyone, we did everything in our flat. We have an almost-two-yearold and a sevenyear-old, so it was pretty intense. Our living room was filled with boxes, books, wrapping paper and mailbags, and we were stepping over books to get into bed. We couldn’t escape from it. When restrictions eased, my priority was to look for office space, and luckily one came up, three streets away from our flat, in a shared studio space. We carted everything over the road, emptied our flat and now leave the house to go to work every morning to go to the office, where we see lots of other people, all renting office space, can chat over a cup of tea and aren’t only seeing each other. ‘We are spending more quality time with our children and are being so much more productive now we have a place designated for work, with the added bonus of being able to pop back whenever we need to.’