The rise and fall of remote working

If, like me, you are a business owner running a people-based operation and have been struggling over the last 18 months to work out where anyone that works for you actually is, then do not give up hope.

It might just be that we are witnessing not only the rise, but also the fall of remote working and it may not be time to hand your keys back just yet!

Of course, it is entirely understandable that life would be so much easier if one can be at home. Simple everyday tasks like dropping the kids to school and dealing with the Tesco delivery are so much more straightforward. But from the business owner’s perspective if you are on the school run or chatting to the driver about his previous job at British Airways, you are not available for work at a time when you should be. Multiply this by a significant number of people and you very quickly have an unmanageable, disengaged and fragmented work force with impossible dynamics.

I am well versed on the benefits of agile working (my staff tell me about it a lot), and my contribution to a greener society by allowing my team to disappear for a few days a week makes me feel very socially responsible. But, dare I say it that the benefits do rather seem to be stacked in favour of the employee.

On the other side of the coin, as business owners we know that there are huge benefits to being in the office and having those spontaneous moments of interaction with colleagues that spark creative (and profitable) thinking. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, one plus one is three. Choose your own simile or metaphor as there are many which demonstrate that a scheduled Zoom Meeting at 3.00 pm on Tuesday is not the platform for productive thinking. It has to be allowed to happen at random.

And thus, I was delighted to read a report by Elizabeth Mahy at the BBC stating that the five-day office week is expected, according to the think-tank Centre for Cities, to become the working ‘norm’ again within two years.

Paul Swinney, director of policy and research at Centre for Cities, told Radio 5 Live's Wake Up to Money programme that a blend of home and office work is expected to be popular while the UK recovers from the COVID pandemic; perhaps three or four days a week in the office. But he expressed hope that over the longer term, we will see people return five days a week with some analysts anticipating a shift back to pre-Covid working patterns for many.

It is interesting to observe that despite the ‘hype’ ONS data published last month shows that during 2020 most people did not work from home. Savills report that since the second quarter of 2020 demand for office space has risen in the UK’s six biggest regional cities.

I am looking forward to welcoming people back to the office on the 21^st of June or sometime shortly thereafter and I am looking forward to the hum of creativity this will create.