Remote working is killing city centres...but what's the alternative?

[Eastie77]

Reading today about Pret cutting almost 3,000 jobs and articles about the death of city centres due to the lack of office workers. My company has announced that all employees can work from home for another year. I honestly doubt our central London office will re-open or at least in the form it took before, ie they may just keep renting part of it for occasional client meetings.

The government is pushing workers back into the office but realistically people are not going to go back while they have the option to WFH and companies have realised they can save on office costs and get the same output from their staff. I am happy to WFH but I really feel for all the local businesses that relied on office workers and are now facing closure. I work close to our office and 6 independent coffee shops and small cafes have closed😔 Not sure what the answer is.

I live in quite a small town and used to WFH a lot before covid. I'd quite like to see more going on outside of the big towns and cities, so perhaps relocating some of the coffee shops etc could be an option. If I had a nice cosy cafe near me I probably would take my laptop and spend afternoons there just for the change of scenery, and meet friends in my breaks etc. I dont know how many people are like me, but I've spoken to lots of people who miss the socialisation aspect of going into the office and struggle with never getting out of the house so there could be options there if you know what I mean. Bring back the local high streets!

Personal choice is the answer.

Employees aren't going to be rushing back to the office whilst they have to wear a mask on public transport there, possibly also at work, possibly whilst getting lunch at the mall, then all the way home again.

Mask wearing may be helpful for reducing transmission but it is becoming the end for shops, malls and leisure.

I saw in the news that compulsory mask wearing is being mooted for offices. I've been happy to return to the office but will work from home permanently if we have to wear masks 8+ hours a day. Health arguments aside, it's just an unpleasant way to live and I don't want to live like that long term.

No. The genie is out the bottle
Businesses have realised that its cheaper for people to wfh -Contrary to boris and pals Idea that people only wfh because they’re afraid to go out

It’s such a pity for cafe and independent shop owners tho

Whilst it is a shame for city centre eateries to be losing business, there is a bright side for some residential areas. Where I live, for example, has been booming during lockdown - at the start of lockdown all the local cafes and restaurants switched to doing takeaways and offering groceries/fruit-n-veg boxes - very popular and a bit of a lifeline for local residents. All reopened with social distancing in July and they seem to be always full and with people queuing down the road for takeaways. The customers, by the looks of it, being WFH people (including us - in fact, we always used to bring a packed lunch when we went to work to save money and time; now that we're not commuting we eat out more for coffee breaks/lunch/tea break).

It's just the modernisation pendulum swinging once more. People used to live mostly in villages or in the countryside.

Industrialisation emptied these places and led to overpopulated cities. Things getting rebalanced towards more rural living, and smaller, more scattered urban centers, wouldn't be a bad thing, IMO.

Of course it enrages all those who've been investing office real estate in large cities, but hey, I don't see why former commuters should subsidise these people's lifestyle choice.

I've been chatting to DH about this today. I think some time in the office would be good for his sense of routine; he rarely leaves the house on weekdays at present. He sees no point when there is no one he naturally interacts with there. There are hands-on people in other departments, but very few desk-based staff.

He's probably socially better off at home as I'm a SAHM. The DCs have been around until now, but at least he can shut himself upstairs much of the time, the DCs are old enough to leave him alone and I'm their main point of contact.

Looks like I'm stuck with him around for a while then... at least we started off the marriage with a 3 month honeymoon and came back still married and liking each other

I agree that this is a bit 'genie out of the bottle' as far as city offices are concerned.

People have realised how much better their life is without the commute and 'having' to pay several pounds a day for food and drink that they can have at home for a fraction of the cost and in many cases is nicer and healthier.

Obviously a shame for city and town centre coffee shops and takeaways but unfortunately, it was a business model that wasn't really sustainable. The chains at least are built on a house of cards of debt and the average office worker isn't going to be desperate to return to a lifestyle that they have realised they are better off without to sustain that.

Pics our company was originally going to re open in October with all employees expected to wear masks (800+ people). It was the feedback on this during an employee call that I think persuaded them to just keep the office closed. Over 95% of employees said they would not work in an office with a mask on all day.

It was unworkable anyway. Thecompany also said no more than 2 people could get in a lift at a time. It would have taken us hours get to our desks in the morning (10th - 15th floor of a huge building)

If this had been a gradual shift it'd have gone ok, it is the shock impact of covid doing it so fast. But I agree - it is a change to embrace. So many negatives from city centre working, commuting, long hours etc.

Please don't think I am unconcerned about the job losses etc - my DP has no work due to covid.

But not sure goi g back to the office is long term beneficial. I hope we can build something better going forwards.

This is just a faster version of what would probably have happened anyway. It’s really sad for those who are affected but I do think generally it’s for the best that more are working from home.

City and town centres were disappearing anyway. The rent and rates in centres are so expensive, that few can carry one. Larger chains will use out of town centres where the rent and rates are cheaper

@PurpleDaisies

This is just a faster version of what would probably have happened anyway. It’s really sad for those who are affected but I do think generally it’s for the best that more are working from home.

Until, of course, many of those employers realise what a lot of other employers have already realised - that you can get equally effective performance and output from workers in India or the Philippines for a fraction of the cost. Then it will be sad for all the people who used to service the city centre workers, sad for the people working from home, and sad for the country in general, when there are no jobs.

To be honest I think it is incredibly sad for the next generation. I look at my 22 year old son who is WFH and hates it and it breaks my heart to think this may be the norm . I loved working in an office in my youth, meeting people, the social side drinks after work, finding out about different areas of the business not just my own, networking , training and developing corporate skills from others . Also I think work requires discipline which tends to be instilled in us firstly from working in a structured environment. Also Graduate training schemes/apprenticeships how are these going to work if we are all WFH. I honestly believe we have an almost moral duty to try and keep some sort of office opportunity for them otherwise how will the next generation develop any skills locked in their bedrooms/living room.
The best compromise I think is flexible working with a combination of office and WFH so we can develop future generations and hopefully keep some of the city centre businesses which rely on office environments alive.

I've been wondering if/when this would happen for years now. Obviously I had no idea that it would be so sudden (or the result of a pandemic!) but as someone who works from home/remotely I often wondered whether a lot of city/office based tasks could be handled from a distance. Especially with longer commutes and the struggle for many people to afford homes near city centre jobs. I think it was almost inevitable (and probably a good thing overall) - it's just been speeded up.

I dislike the London centric approach and I’d like to see less focus on the commute (which would help the environment as well as give people a better/work life balance) and more opportunities to WFH or hot desk in office spaces in the rest of the country.

Public transport employ a huge number of people. WFH will decimate this industry. Government funding is due to end in October, the number of redundancies will be massive.

The likes of pret will need to reevaluate where their stores are. My internet died earlier when I had a work deadline and I got the last table in our local independent cafe (with excellent internet) most people had laptops on their tables. There's a business opportunity in commuter towns and villages to cater to those not wanting to be at home alone all day.

I'm quite pleased, in a way. It was not good for the country to have more and more people squeezed into the South East. I want cities to be depopulated and towns and villages to be revitalised.

I read - possibly in the Guardian - that the UK government are running a media campaign to encourage people back into offices in a bid to keep high streets ticking over.

I'm in Scotland, and Nicola Sturgeon actually said today that the advice remains to work at home if you can, and that employers must take this on board.

I don't think people should be shamed in constantly spending their money to buy lunch every day when there is still the virus, obesity is an issue and we should really be watching our money with a recession! Rock and hard place.

I think the widening of the inequality gap is the big issue here. There are those, like me, who are fortune enough to be able to WFH but if you work in e.g. the food services industry it's not an option. There will be millions simply left behind and reliant on inadequate state assistance.

Moondust001 that is a good point. My job can be carried out by someone in one of our offices in India. Our team exists because we look after 'Premium' customers in the EU who need local expertise from our team to go into their offices and work with them on projects. Since we can no longer do that I now wonder if there will be redundancies and roles redeployed overseas. We are currently working in exactly the same way as the team in India whose salaries are a fraction of ours.

I went to a soft play on an out of town business park thing the other day - it mostly offices there plus a few shops/restaurants, a gym, a big Costco and the soft play. Not one of the restaurants/cafes were open, nor the WHS Smith. This was in the middle of the working day. I didn’t see anyone walking around except a couple of people heading to the gym and kids going to the soft play. At least city centres have the attraction of shops to still get people in - I can’t see any Of these cafes or anything reopening anytime soon. It was weird.

Norwich is heaving currently- queues out the door at Pret.

Agree WFH impacts on opportunity for less experienced people to receive mentoring and training that the work environment is naturally structured to facilitate.

Agree - easy to WFH? Great! Out source to a work force cheaper to employ aka India, South Africa and the list of possible candidates continues.

Agree - career change to roles that rely on interpersonal social connection, eg, teaching (grim), social care.

As someone that’s WFH for the last couple of years within a team are routines we’re just different.

We’d still meet up once a week for coffee to have a ‘chat/catch up’. Every three weeks or so we’d have dinner with the bosses (usually a shit sandwich but can’t complain over free food). Once 5pm hit I’d be straight out the door to grab coffee/dinner/meet up with friends/gym as I’d be sick of the same walls. Quite often I’d work from a coffee shop if I had bit of slump WFH. If we had bigger meetings/interviews etc we’d hire out a meeting room.

I think that office space will become apartments. Businesses will still have office space/meet in person but it will be skimmed down.

What’s the point from people commuting hours and paying a fortune to sit at another desk, as open the same laptop they had at home?

My town seems to be thriving, the city, less so.

While I feel sorry for the workers rather than fat cat bosses, these are businesses and it is not my 'duty' to prop them up (I could never afford Pret anyway or Costa, I take my own food/coffee).

I do feel for the younger generation who may not get to experience all the positives of working in an office.
However, I'm now jaded after working in offices for nearly 30 years - I have to return and there is no appeal!