![]() London) then unless you offer a unique skillset that cannot be found elsewhere it could make more economic sense for employers to outsource this work, whether that is nationally or internationally. While I am not claiming it is a civic duty for people to go back to the office, there must be a self-awareness among employees that if you are able to work from home 100% of the time and do not need to be in a specific location to do your job (i.e. With trust and rapport harder to create virtually, particularly for employees that are brand new to companies or for those starting out in their careers, companies risk an erosion of corporate culture as it has become increasingly more difficult for companies to connect their workforce to each other, harness a company culture and create a sense of community. While the global pandemic has proved that some elements of remote working are successful, in many cases employees have relied on strong existing relationships to keep businesses operating. Sometimes you can cover more topics and share more collaborative ideas in a five minute chat by the coffee machine than you can on a 30 minute Zoom call with a dodgy internet connection. Without face-to-face engagement, and those casual meetings around the coffee machine, the ‘flow’ of ideas that makes things work are harder to replicate as people are now starting to realise that while the digital world of Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Skype have their merits, they are no substitute for face-to-face meetings. With Lockdown 2 coming into effect from today (05th November 2020) combined with the colder weather, less hours of sunlight and less social interaction unfortunately we will now begin to see the true impact it is starting to have on peoples mental health, physical health and wellbeing. ![]() This now seems to be a false picture, because we were basing this new trend of working from home on just the summer months and not the full yearly cycle. The weather during April - August were some of the sunniest months on record which also contributed to some of the working from home feel-good factor as people were able to shut down their laptops at a reasonable hour and make the most of the sunny weather in their gardens, exercising in parks etc and in the latter months enjoying beer gardens again and the Eat Out to Help Out scheme. In my ‘Death of the Office or Evolution of the Office’ blog post back in June, I said that humans “by their very nature are social beings that rely on interactions and building relationships to survive” and for a while during the months of April - August, there seemed to be a seismic shift in the industry with employees experiencing a freedom and a real reprieve from the "rat race" by eliminating their commutes and working from home. The reasons for employees wanting to go back to the office can be attributed to: While the office sector is going through a torrid period at the moment I feel that we are in the midst of what is a ‘coiled spring’ effect meaning that when we get back to some form of normality there will ultimately be a surge of demand for flexible office space, as employees grow tired of working from home and companies choosing to adopt a hybrid model of office space and remote working. ![]() ![]() There has been a huge debate around the “Death of the Office” since the initial lockdown and while we are still uncertain about how all this may look, patterns are emerging which point to a reconfiguration of how we traditionally use office space. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |