Zoom from home or co-working spaces – what will the future of work look like?
Only two years ago it looked as though office life was going through the biggest changes of the 21st century. The rise (and fall) of WeWork and the concept of co-working promised new corporate cultures based on creative collaboration and a better work-life balance.
Start-ups sought out offices with fun perks: free coffee, beers, yoga sessions, pets and ping pong tables. Workers were encouraged to bring their home life into the office with the aim of making the office feel more like home.
Then, suddenly, the office was home. The pandemic struck and Zoom came into our homes. Slack, casual clothes became the norm and a walk to the spare room became the new daily commute. The kitchen table became the new place for office chit chat.
But now there is a call back to the office. Remember them? Over the last few weeks Boris Johnson has begun urging people to return to work (if they can safely), eager to boost the economy and provide a lifeline to struggling businesses and high streets that rely on demand from office workers.
Not surprisingly, the prospect of returning to work in what now seems the rather old-fashioned idea of an office has divided the country. People split into two camps. On the one hand, “WFH” or indeed “WFA” (“Work from Anywhere”) gives back invaluable time and money normally sacrificed to the daily commute. It allows parents to be more flexible with childcare, and the working day becomes adaptable to the individual’s needs, in contrast with more rigid workplace constraints.
Yet on the other side of the divide, not everyone is thriving from the change in working culture; shared houses, family responsibilities, and technical difficulties make WFH difficult. A Doodle study of over 1,000 US employees found that a full week of virtual meetings leaves 38% of employees feeling exhausted while 30% felt stressed. This perhaps owes to the frustrations of colleagues talking over one another or poor connection; 52 % of employees said background noise and/or poor audio quality disrupted their focus, while 23 % said it leads to miscommunication with clients.
Working from home removes the chance for quick questions or catch-ups, overloads the inbox with emails and makes brainstorming and creative collaboration more difficult. The lack of a commute can also extend the working day, making it harder to draw the line between work and play. There is always a need for client face to face meetings, and it is much harder, most new starters would agree, starting a new job virtually, without the easing in of after-work drinks.
These complications to entry-level jobs (and the nightmarish reality of WFH in a house share) could be why young people are finding WFH life so taxing. Another US study found that over 80% of millennials and Generation-Z feel less connected whilst working from home, and between 57-61% felt the time spent on Zoom each day impacted their productivity.
The reluctance to return to work, then, is perhaps less on the employee and more on the employer. Law firm Clifford Chance, whose London HQ is in the 176,000 sq. ft of Canary Wharf shopping centre’s office space, describes any plans to return to the office as “premature”. Though the firm has a phased plan in place to allow employees to return under government guidelines, it has yet to timetable the return and does not appear to be in any hurry to do so. In contrast, office space and co-working pioneers The Office Group (TOG) report close to 30% of their clients (companies) are using their TOG work spaces and offices again, with at least one employee.
There are many reasons why so many white-collar employers are reluctant to bring their workers back to the office. Employers cannot ensure employees a safe commute and a resumption of the congestion charge at an increased rate leaves many with no choice but to take public transport. Being at the centre of an outbreak and liable for employees increased risk of contracting the virus is an HR nightmare. Yet, a study of 1,600 UK employees by Jefferies, the investment bank, found that over 60% want to return to work when they can.
The more pertinent question is: how will offices adapt to become a safer place for socially-distanced working?
WeWork is one of the few to unveil plans to Covid-proof its co-working spaces focusing on professional distancing, cleanliness, and behavioural signage across their facilities. Hand sanitiser and two-metre distancing stickers will be installed in every room and lobby, the capacity of each room will be reconsidered, communal pantries will have single-use cutlery and condiments to avoid cross-contamination.
Work snooks, originally designed as small group break out areas, will become individual work spaces limited to one person at a time. The air filtration systems are also set to be upgraded. Though social distancing invalidates almost all of the unique selling propositions of co-working, companies such as WeWork are looking to capitalise on companies giving up expensive London leases and looking for a space to use 2-3 times a week.
Woods Bagot, the architectural firm, has gone a little further than health and safety guidelines suggest. It has designed four innovative workplaces that could provide office space solutions. The workplaces aim not only to conform to new health and safety regulations but also promote and nurture creativity and productivity.
The first design, “In Culture Club”, is made up of groupings of sofas and tables. The idea is that the office is only used for collaborative tasks, any individual desk work is conducted at home to minimise non-essential travel; the office becomes an HQ for meetings only.
“In and Out” imagines a small percentage of the team in the office at a time, on a rotating basis, allowing companies to downsize office space. “Community Nodes” is perhaps the most revolutionary. The scheme envisions a main HQ in the city centre, and then smaller “nodes” or hubs nearer employees’ homes. These satellite offices would help reduce travel and overcrowding on public transport.
Finally, “Collectives” are open place offices with clusters of break-out spaces, closely resembling modern offices pre-Covid. The models aim to provide innovative solutions to companies’ insecurities about a return to traditional offices, but also to cater for employees’ requirements for a change of scenery and more effective working environments.
The motivation to reconfigure the office has been confounded by Covid, but the initiative was already there. Matt Oakley, head of commercial research as Savills Plc., told Bloomberg that many banks had a five-year plan in place to reduce floor space by a fifth.
Yet British entrepreneur Sir Lloyd Dorfman, who was chair of The Office Group until 2017, declared his “faith” in the future of central London this week when he snapped up one of the capital’s hottest new properties. Dorfman, who founded Travelex, is paying £40.5 million for 18,400 square feet of office space and a theatre by the new Tottenham Court Road Crossrail station at 2 and 4 Soho Place.
Olly Olsen, co-founder of flexible workspace provider The Office Group, says that where you work has never been of greater importance.
He said: “We believe that the business models which support the benefits of fluid, flexible working environments and how the interaction between employer and employee is shifting to become a relationship based on trust and versatility will be the ones that are most successful.”
Olsen’s vision for the future of offices ties in with Woods Bagot’s “In and Out” and “Culture Club” models, looking to combine elements of WFH with pre-Covid corporate life.
“Flexible workspaces can provide a collaborative space for when you are required to come together as a collective, forming a key part of a hybrid model where we rotate home working and working from a flexible office.”
Once the Stockholm syndrome passes and pixelated Zoom calls get on our last nerves, new hybrid models from the likes of TOG and Woods Bagot might just be the perfect working compromise.