The pandemic has signalled a massive shift from the traditional office-based 9-5 to home working or hybrid models allowing the best of both worlds.
While the tech that allows remote working has become common place, many employees are missing the benefit of real world relationships and so are our city and town centres.
LifeSearch's recent showed that the hybrid model is the ideal working environment, according to British workers.
Interestingly, twice as many workers would like to be 100% office-based rather than work permanently from home.
Emma Walker, Chief Marketing Officer at LifeSearch said: “It is clear that working from home permanently is not most people’s idea of a good working set-up, especially not for younger adults, quite likely to do with the fact that two in five under 35s don’t have either a suitable home office or a quiet place to work."
So now the novelty has worn off, is working from home all it's cracked up to be? BusinessLive asked the experts.
Deser ted High Streets
Few will forget the images of our once thriving cities and towns utterly deserted during repeated lockdowns. Some of our biggest High Street names failed to weather the storm with the restrictions eventually toppling Debenhams and stalwarts like Topshop and Dorothy Perkins only for them to be hoovered up as online brands by the new royalty of retail, Asos and Boohoo.
It has led to a major re-think of the commercial space now being held by the big brands with some pulling out of the once prime shopping areas to smaller suburban streets where stay-at-home workers are more likely to shop.
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Guy Elliott, Senior Vice President, Retail at Publicis Sapient said: "The broader change which is currently sweeping through retail and hospitality is where organisations are eyeing how quickly people come back to offices and are being conservative about their investments in stores in large metropolitan, non-residential areas. Many areas of London, The City included, are examples of this.
"And they have good reason to be cautious, with demand for office space expected to reduce significantly over the course of the next year which subsequently, means fewer people in offices in these bigger towns and cities, fewer people popping out to grab coffee or lunch, or that age old tradition of a pint after work"
But it isn't necessarily all doom and gloom and it’s certainly not “death of the city centre”, said Mr Elliott.
Workers still want to meet up for business reasons and central areas are likely to become busier after the summer break.
He said: "There will undoubtedly be an over-correction for office workers, wanting to reconnect with colleagues and friends face-to-face once more people return to the office after the summer, and businesses best be prepared for the surge to capitalise on this."
Recent analysis by the centre for cities has shown that smaller towns and cities, where people both live and work, had a smaller drop in footfall than the bigger centres during the early stages of the pandemic.
While it seems these areas may benefit from fewer office returnees, the picture is not that simple. Mr Elliott said: "People who work from home don’t tend to go out for coffee or lunch, they make it at home themselves so the actual beneficiaries will be the grocery stores.
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"As people shift from buying their coffee (or sandwiches) on their way into the office, and realising the money they have saved by making it themselves at home, their habits may have changed."
Put a wash on while you work
Better work-life balance has been hailed as one of the biggest plus sides of home working. Getting the washing loaded and out to dry, ditching the commute or taking the dog for a lunchtime walk has allowed people to use their time more efficiently - and many don't want to go back to the old ways.
An published this week revealed that the shift towards working from home seen during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic may help enable older workers to remain in the labour market for longer.
Cheney Hamilton, Chief Executive at Darlington-based flexible working recruiter, Find Your Flex said that older staff particularly had been impacted during the wholesale shift to remote working but would now be looking for more flexibility in the later stages of their working lives.
She said: "People's mindsets have changed irreversibly as a result of the pandemic.
"Flexibility that was once considered a luxury is now a requirement, if you're lucky enough to find a role."
And at the other end of the spectrum, workers are increasingly looking elsewhere if their employees refuse to be flexible.
The latest research collated by Instant Offices, a Global Workspace Specialists, shows 9 out of 10 office workers say they want more flexibility in where and when they do their job – and more than half of them are willing to leave if they don’t get it.
Another survey by EY revealed that 54% of workers worldwide would consider leaving their current job after the pandemic if their employees don’t offer more flexibility.
The growing demand for flexibility at work is reflected in the high number of jobs with remote offerings now becoming available. For example, in the past month alone, Glassdoor has posted over 80,000 jobs advertised as “remote” and 490,000 advertised as “flexible”.
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Do home workers miss out?
Earlier this month, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak urged Brits back to the office as he .
Rishi Sunak was speaking during an interview about the helpful relationships he made working in offices at the start of his career and he said it was "really important" for young people to be in a workplace.
He said: "I doubt I would have had those strong relationships if I was doing my summer internship or my first bit of my career over Teams and Zoom.
"And that's why I think for young people in particular being able to physically be in an office is valuable."
Old Mill financial specialists have been actively recruiting through the pandemic year and found one of the hardest parts has been inductions and training.
Amanda Bradley, Technical Training Manager at Old Mill, said: "We set up WhatsApp groups for incoming graduates, so they feel like they are a part of the team right from the start. We have also encouraged new starters to ‘meet up’ – even if it is online - having buddies is vital.
“And while doing things remotely can be more challenging, it is also important to embrace the advantages too. For example, being able to easily record induction and training sessions using the technology on MS Teams has been really beneficial, as we have managed to build up a library of useful induction material. Another benefit of remote training is that it can be far more wide reaching; last September we were able to involve 39 people in our induction training, which would have been logistically impossible if we had been doing it face to face.”
Invisible workers
While hybrid working remains an option, there is always a chance that some people will miss out on office life and the obvious 'presenteeism' this allows.
Women, carers, older workers and those with health concerns are more likely to choose to work from home but may be passed over in favour of always-in-the-office colleagues.
In an interview with Joeli Brearley, founder of the charity Pregnant Then Screwed, which facing maternity or pregnancy discrimination, said that leaving the choice of workplace entirely in the hands of staff is a worry.
She said: “Those at home will look like they’re less committed to their job, they won’t have as a good a relationship with their manager, the person that can promote them and give them a pay rise."
But flexibility and home work has allowed women to enter the work force when they otherwise couldn't.
And it's made family-life far more visible.
Wendy Dean, Chief Executive of business consultancy Strategi Solutions, based in Newcastle -under-Lyme said in this article : "Lockdown has opened up a lot of opportunities for women because we can work from home now and it's shown that we don’t have to be in an office and be at ours desk for 9am to be able to do our jobs.
"I have been the only woman on the board at two separate companies and if I’d have had a family it would have been really hard because you were expected to go to events, travel abroad and go to visit sites overseas. There were never any questions about whether you could do it or not, that’s what you had to do.
"But it’s acceptable to have your family involved in your work now, I can’t tell you the amount of children I’ve seen in Zoom backgrounds.
"When it happened with Professor Robert Kelly back in 2017, we all laughed about it because it was so unusual, but actually that’s normal today.
“It’s now acceptable to have a life that you can bring into the workplace a little bit and I think that’s a really positive thing, particularly for women.”
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