The jury is still out on the world vision of office working once the pandemic restrictions subside. Twitter have announced that their employees can work from home ‘forever’, whereas the view from Netflix is that homeworking is ‘a pure negative’.1
But, unlike AS&K, these big corporations have completely different considerations. We are being guided by listening to the needs of our staff.
In a recent survey of our team, only 4% said that they are planning to come back into the office 5 days a week post-COVID. Others are happy to continue working from home full time, and the remainder are looking for a blended approach. So, from an office with occupancy at 90% this time last year, the figure will be closer to 30% occupancy post-COVID restrictions.
Before the pandemic, the predominantly office-based productivity worked well for us; in our COVID home-based offices, productivity did not waver.
Moving forward, our challenge is creating a set up that serves everyone’s needs in some kind of hybrid form – an environment that is as positive, collaborative and productive for people in the office as it is for those working from home and joining meetings via Zoom.
While we have yet to agree anything tangible, listening to our staff has allowed us to establish an AS&K ‘work and wellbeing’ brief for the future, grounded in dynamic, flexible, employee-centred working.
Simon Gee
Agency Head
London, Feb 2021
- https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/09/12/is-the-office-finished
