While employees will continue to spend more time working from home once the coronavirus pandemic has subsided, the need to visit an office at least occasionally won’t go away completely. The office of the future is likely to look considerably different from those we are used to, however. Organisations will rearrange their working spaces to meet stricter regulation around biosecurity to protect against future outbreaks while accommodating smaller numbers of employees at any one time.
A survey conducted by the CBI and PwC last summer found that 74 per cent of financial services firms were reviewing their current office space requirements for example, primarily driven by a desire to redefine or reconfigure use of existing facilities. Very few were actively considering closing down their offices entirely. But most recognise they will need to maintain some sort of shared workspace on a smaller scale as employee visits become less frequent or limited to those...