New Surveys Show More Telework Won't Kill the Office

Over the past three months, the COVID-19 pandemic has forcibly accelerated the growing trend of working from home, leaving workplaces around the globe empty and prompting many market commentators to hail the end of the office.

Not so, according to Harry de Ferry Foster, co-head of U.K. operations at Savills Investment Management, which has 23.4 billion U.S. dollars of assets under management globally.

"I think the death of the office has been overdone. Twenty years ago, it was thought that the rise in home working would mean no one would want offices anymore, but we’ve needed far more space than was predicted at the time. Technology has obviously improved and people do work from home more, but we have still needed more and more office space," de Ferry Foster said during a telephone interview. "There are many commentators who want to say something interesting and predict the end of the office, and when it doesn’t happen the hype is quickly forgotten.’’

Research from Colliers International indicates he may well be right. The broker’s latest "Global Work From Home" survey, which polled more than 5,000 respondents from 18 different industries across the globe, found that, while there is employee support for the continuation of some form of remote work, the desire and need to return to the office is likely to be strong once the pandemic is over.

Only 12% of respondents said they would like to work four days or more from home post-lockdown, with 49% saying they would like to limit WFH to a maximum of two days a week when the pandemic has subsided, the survey found.

"The greatest surprise for many companies has been the realization that their organization can work remotely, be productive and stay connected,’’ said Jan Jaap Boogaard, head of Colliers' advisory practice for workplaces in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which carried out the survey. “However, the office is very much alive and kicking because it is hard to create a compelling team culture when working remotely. We need face-to-face interaction in order to build true, meaningful connections.”

The survey found that 23% of respondents reported that their productivity had declined as a result of working at home full time, 26% reported it had increased and 51% reported no change at all. Living arrangements had the greatest impact on productivity, with about 30% of respondents who had roommates, and around 27% of those who had children reporting a more pronounced decline or lower increase in their work performance, according to the survey.

"People like to be around other people. It was fine on lockdown but as we are coming out there seem to be more neighbors working on their homes, more children running about and that level of disturbance will only increase the further we come out of lockdown,’’ de Ferry Foster said. "And what about graduates? Are children going to grow up learning from an iPad, go to virtual university and then as they progress to a job sit at home and never interact with anybody? I don’t see that happening; graduates need to be in offices around mentors, listen to people on the phone and pick up how are things are done.’’

Of the employees polled in the Colliers survey, those aged between 21 and 30 expressed the greatest desire to work from the office compared with older generations. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said that remote working left them feeling isolated from their team, and 12% said their managers were unable to manage virtually.

According to Sven Moller, associate director for EMEA Workplace Advisory at Colliers, companies will need to find a balance between creating enough space to allow people and teams to meet in the office when they need to, while managing their space efficiency and flattening workplace occupancy peaks. "Many successful innovations and collaborations arise unexpectedly, it’s serendipity, and this is hard to achieve over scheduled video calls,’’ Moller said.

A separate survey by Savills sent to 65,000 clients during the lockdown period in late April found up to 89% of respondents said they believed that physical office space remains a necessity for companies to operate successfully, but the office is set to change.

Over 70% of respondents believe there will be a long-term impact on the design and size of the workplace, including an increase in flexible and remote working, which is predicted not to affect significantly, if at all, the total demand for office space given the need to create more distance between workers. The survey found that 18-24-year-olds continue to display a clear preference for the office, with 25% still expecting to spend no time at home post-lockdown, the highest of any age category.

In a column for CoStar, Hunter Booth, Savills director of office agency in London, wrote the pandemic has accelerated a "cultural shift in work style with a deeper trust of employees to manage their time and location appropriately," suggesting going forward that companies are likely to offer more flexibility in work relationships.

"The office offers a valuable boundary between work and home, but the flexibility to work from home when required is here for good," he argued.

"Overall, what has shifted for good, I believe, is a mindset of inclusiveness and the realization that, as long as we are all doing it, we can blur the lines of work, home and play to ultimately be more productive, happier and fulfilled," he concluded, before saying there are some new safety routines he is ready to bid goodbye to once the health crisis is over. "I’m not walking one way round the office forever though!"