The pandemic has forced businesses to reassess their location strategies. Is there still a need for the traditional city centre headquarters office, or could this be replaced by a presence in suburban locations and at transport hubs?
The roundtable heard that most companies feel that a headquarters building is still needed to establish a company culture and to host larger meetings, but satellite offices on the outskirts can be used for everyday requirements. The need to be near public transport is still important, particularly in London, but local amenities such as childcare, gyms and good food offerings are increasingly influential.
Businesses have explored the use of serviced office providers like WeWork and IWG to give their staff access to a wider range of locations. And some are even exploring deals with hotel chains. However, participants expressed concerns around issues like confidentiality, infrastructure and the lack of control and support for staff. There seems to be a preference for owners to facilitate flexible space directly.
However, the pandemic has proved that homeworking is a viable option for many roles, and companies are exploring whether this will allow them to recruit staff from a far wider geographic pool. For instance, parents returning from parental leave might find it easier to return to work if they could work from home. However, challenges remain around hybrid meetings – how do those not in the office get to participate as adequately as those in the office?
And some roles still need a place where people can come together to collaborate. Creatives, for instance, still ideally need a whiteboard and lots of direct interaction to brainstorm projects.
This chimes to a certain extent with the UK government’s levelling-up agenda, which seeks to boost the attractiveness of regional cities as business locations. The government had already set down a marker by pledging to reduce its footprint in the capital from 67 buildings to 20 by 2030. This deadline has now been revised and 22,000 civil servants are expected to leave London by 2025.
Participants in the roundtables also reported that the pandemic had highlighted issues for businesses that operate internationally. The UK, or more particularly London, was seen as an outlier with its reliance on a workforce willing to commute long distances to work by public transport. Not surprisingly, there is a greater reluctance to return to the office here with as many as one third of staff saying they have no desire to return to the office.
In other major European markets, where staff tend to live closer to the office and are more likely to commute by private car, there appears to be less reluctance. Other factors may also be at play: homeworking has been less successful in markets with poor domestic broadband and with smaller houses and flats.
Equally, the UK was seen as being further down the road towards agile working even before the pandemic struck. Participants said the office culture in other European markets is less ready for hybrid working – it is more unionised and more hierarchical. For example, in Germany working from home is completely novel and staff are used to fixed hours.
And beyond Europe, India and Latin America had become popular destinations for offshoring support functions. While in many locations the office accommodation is of good quality, the ability for colleagues to work from home is very limited. Will this lead to a slowdown in offshoring back-office jobs, or even the return of some of them to more developed countries?