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.

People have been discussing the death of city centres for years now, decades probably. Filling some of them with eateries or trying to replicate some parts of London in very different areas always seemed a risky move to me.

Where I am has been suffering well before COVID. I imagine plenty of councils and national governments will use this as an excuse why things are going so badly for many years to come rather than the policies that came well before it. Even during this, they've wanted to 'redeveloped' a building that had to come down and shove as much stuff onto as possible while admitting they've no idea how the roads or houses near it would cope. You'd think they'd question squashing things together these days, but they're stuck in old habits/contacts. Same with outsourcing abroad, that has its own risks and difficulties and many of the those flaws were apparent before COVID and only became more obvious.

Ideally, for me, we'd shift more conscious into what different communities needs & wants and businesses would be based around that. I don't see that happening through, I think we'll see more empty building and whicever ones are the cheapest to run.

I don't want to work in a coffee shop with strangers, that's not social interaction. I want to work with my colleagues that I've known for 10 years! There's no opportunity for ad hoc discussion on issues as they arise, so people just do what they think is right. I suspect it depends on your industry (and internet connection!) but for me I would really like to get back to work, everyone wfh is a very imperfect situation.

Perhaps it will lead to a revival of local high streets & if people have more time then then may have more money to spend on eating out, exercising, hobbies etc.

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.

If no one has any jobs who will be buying the services that these companies who are offshoring are selling?

although I think most places will opt for a 50/50 approach rather than 100% home working.

I think we’ll ended up with a blended flexible approach. The economic devastation caused by the end of big commercial property would be massive - are you happy for your pension fund to reduce by 10?20? Percent?

It’s easy to make the lazy assumption that it’s only the wealthy invested in commerce but actually we’re all invested in this. Are you happy for tube lines to fully shut down? Offer an 20-30 minute service because that’s all that can be afforded?

I’m all for flexible working with some working from home to stay, but ultimately, once there’s a vaccine and we’re through the winter we’ll need people to go back otherwise face enormous economic consequences.

The pension issue is an obvious concern, will creating more housing help?
Also I would expect fares to increase & services to reduce re transport.

It's an absolute mess. The government went all crazy at the beginning forcing everyone at home and now they want to try and get people back.

But you can't say on one hand it's safe to go back but only if you follow all these rules which make it hard for employers to implement so it remains easier to keep people at home.

I have always had a mix of office and WFH and would be happy to go back to that. But only if no SD (or masks) otherwise there is no benefit being back in the office.

It would be nice to see small towns and villages getting a boost with coffee/sandwich shops to cater for home workers - independents - not chains, more of the cheap gym chains in small towns etc

If they want people back in their offices they should make the commute more affordable - travel costs should be tax deductible at the very least. Why should I pack myself into a rush hour train not even getting a seat at the best of times for a cost that for some people rivals their mortgage payments to then eat an over priced sandwich at my desk

Or sit on a bus that takes an hour to go 6 miles during rush hour?

I'm sorry people are losing their jobs but I'm not going to commute when I don't have to to prop up a multi million (or billion) foreign owned chain

City centres were dying well before covid - they need to become multi functional - city centre homes suitable for families not just foreign students and single 20 somethings - there needs to be schools and nurseries, care homes, more outside spaces and leisure activities all available in what once was traditional a central BUSINESS district only so that you don't just commute into the city to work you actually LIVE there - that is the only way retail is going to survive in the city centre

I believe that most of the civil service are still wfh. Which is completely at odds with what the Government is saying.

Although I think people should carry on wfh at least until the spring. There won’t be an economy at all if we end up with a second wave. And if people can wfh, they should.

Although I have huge amounts of sympathy with the low paid workers in coffee shops etc. I would be quite happy for Pret, Starbucks and Costa to go out of business.

I absolutely want to go back to the office. I miss being somewhere different. I miss the chat, reading my book on the bus, going to the gym or walking at lunchtime. I don’t drive and I have an almost 3 year old so I feel very confined to the suburb we live in right now.

I'm back to the office next week and looking forward to it, I enjoy my short commute (peace from the DC's ) and I am lonely. However, my role is still rather uncertain so I won't be going to coffee shops etc as I'm trying to save as much as I can in case I'm made redundant. The winner from my situation is the supermarket that I'm doing my weekly shop at instead of Starbucks/local deli/high street.

It is a shame but why would I ever go back to spending 8 hours a week commuting to an office? We've proven it's completely unnecessary.

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.

Actually this is not true. A lot of businesses are pulling out of thr Philippines. Not least because their lockdown is more severe than ours and connectivity in many villages is really bad, which along with other factors has led to a decrease in productivity and quality of service. Many industries are coming to the conclusion that cheaper isn't always better in terms of customer rentention becaue if the customer isn't happy they walk.

I know a business that is pulling out of th3 Philippines for this very reason. Can't speak for India but I know there are serious IP concerns in the tech industry around outsourcing there.

excuse the typos

That's capitalism right? Demands rise and fall, businesses come and go. If people don't want paninis anymore, then we don't need panini shops.

Next!

Where I work, a lot of office buildings have been converted in to residential units meaning the lunchtime trade dropped massively. It used to be massively busy walking out at lunchtime but not so much over the last few years. The knock on effect of this was that lots of cafes and shops struggled and many shut down.

Over time, though, the cafes have reopened as licensed cafes/restaurants focussing more on evening trade. Shops have changed to more regular late closing times to allow for evening trade from people returning home later from work. It's taken a while but there's less of a feeling of abandoned office centre now and more of a residential feel to it.

Yes, there will be a time where areas will appear to suffer but they do eventually find their way back.

It is a terrible shame for those losing their jobs over it, but office workers are finding a better work-life balance and companies are able to save costs. It's difficult to ask a business to carry on as they were before to support businesses that actually have nothing to do with them...

@Hmmph

I believe that most of the civil service are still wfh. Which is completely at odds with what the Government is saying.

Although I think people should carry on wfh at least until the spring. There won’t be an economy at all if we end up with a second wave. And if people can wfh, they should.

Although I have huge amounts of sympathy with the low paid workers in coffee shops etc. I would be quite happy for Pret, Starbucks and Costa to go out of business.

I believe some departments are mostly working from home, but other departments either can’t or have mostly chosen not to - such as passport office, dwp, border force etc.

I reckon the joys of home working will reduce when home heating bill increase over winter, and people are approaching a year of being stuck in on their own. For some it’s incredibly isolating. A flexible approach may be better?

City centres were dying well before covid - they need to become multi functional - city centre homes suitable for families not just foreign students and single 20 somethings - there needs to be schools and nurseries, care homes, more outside spaces and leisure activities all available in what once was traditional a central BUSINESS district only so that you don't just commute into the city to work you actually LIVE there - that is the only way retail is going to survive in the city centre

Absolutely. I’m surprised at the number of people swallowing the UK govt messaging about getting back to the office to somehow save the economy . The UK economy was struggling pre Covid with lots of retailers, restaurant chains and more teetering on the edge. Covid has just caused many of them to topple a little earlier.

The idea that the economy will go to shit if people aren’t spending in coffee and lunch to go type places is ridiculous. Those businesses came into being in response to a demand. As more people wfh that demand and indeed other businesses opportunities will shift to towns and villages - the places where local high streets have been left to rot for so long as all investment went to cities...

On MN it seems like some people see WFH as the cause of all economic problems and a return to the daily commute and office based working as some kind of “cure”.

I've been predominantly WFH for 13 years and can do everything I need to, unless a client demands face to face consultancy. If they don't demand this, I'll usually do 1 or 2 onsite meetings during the lifecycle of a project and that's it.

Grant Shapps today said that there is a limit to what can be done over Zoom (just don't use this, use something far better!!) etc, for meetings and day to day work, but in my experience, he is wrong and to be honest I think he knows this. He is saying this to get people back in the office and obviously back in shops. It just isn't going to recover to the levels it was at pre-covid.

Employers that have been against WFH are now seeing that people can be trusted to WFH and are productive and they can save money.

We've closed multiple offices already and will close more. The hub offices will be kept on and that's it.

The government can kick, scream and demand businesses open offices as much as they like, but they can't tell the private sector what to do in this regard, so they may as well stop now. They are looking desperate and it doesn't look good.

As I've said before, they are now reaping what they sowed.

I had the misfortune to go into my small city the other day to do a job.

Thing is, it's a vicious circle- there's fewer buses running now, so I drove in to find the council had shut one of the main car parks (not enough staff, who know?) and that there was a lot of congestion to get into another one, it took about 25 min to queue.

By the time I got in I was flustered and stressed. Social distancing wasn't easy given the pouring rain and people huddling in doorways.

I could get the bus in, but for two of us that's nearly £8.50, just to pop in to pick something up for one day, you can't go in two/three times a week at that price just for the fun of it.

I want to go out and see friends, eat out, do the odd bit of shopping, but I'm not prepared to fight my way into the city or local towns and cope with the parking issues or expensive public transport to do so.

So much easier to stay home, work from home 3 days a week (office two ideally), order off Amazon and eat out locally.

I don't know if our city council is just completely inept, but they just don't seem to understand I don't want to cycle into town where it's not that clean to find products that are cheaper and delivered the next day at home.

I don't believe all jobs are going to be outsourced to someone with a computer in a different country, I will need to do face to face work at least a couple of times a week.

Work has been moving in this direction for some time. COVID has just accelerated this significantly. While I sympathise with anyone who runs or works for a city centre organisation, this move is inevitable. But it has to be down to individual workers and individual organisations to decide what works best for them. Not the government. We still live in a free market, not a communist dictatorship.

I have no idea yet if I'll return to Central London working or not, because it depends on whether I find a job or not, and where the job is located. I wonder if suburban offices will become more popular.

However, one thing I will say is that the lockdown has made me realise just how much money I was wasting on lunchtime foods including Pret. I've also lost an entire stone of weight, due to (a) no office cake, and (b) no wasting money at Pret/snacks/smoothies/croissants.

So even if we do return to city centre offices, I predict we'll see a huge resurgence in the Art of the Packed Lunch. Even for people who haven't lost weight, the financial implications should be obvious for most people. So even if we come back to work, it won't necessarily be good news for Pret.

I don't believe all jobs are going to be outsourced to someone with a computer in a different country

Neither do I. I've managed a wide variety of large outsourced IT groups, and it is not as easy as most people think. What I can see happening is a new industry of micro outsourcing within the UK, with home-working and small satellite co-working offices becoming a good deal more common. But management practice has to change too, and that won't happen overnight.

Not likely @Moondust001

The tax implications alone for moving all these supposed jobs abroad would be huge. What happens to lost NI and income tax etc? Which country gets the tax revenue if millions of jobs are moved elsewhere, the Gov wouldn’t stand for it.