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.

Im hoping that firms regionalise more. So particularly aeas that have struggled with London centric planning get a boost. Then everyone wont have to live near London.

I am also hoping that places move to a mix of home working and offive work so that offices can be smaller and the environmental impact of travel is reduced but there is still some time together.

We will likely WfH more, though not exclusively. And we have already started buying more locally - including lunches from our local cafes. So possibly a move from some of these businesses from city centres to local high streets.

I know someone who runs a retail business in the suburbs and business couldn't be better. People will still spend their money, just in different places. See the hiring that the supermarket chains are doing

I have read about the Pret closures and thought, well to be honest they've got so many stores that their business model must be top heavy.

Likewise with Carlucios, Debs, Pizza Express their financial difficulties had been much-published before March so I feel to blame people WFH is disingenuous.

Then you have the commute costs. Network South East et al have totally gouged commuters and delivered a shot service for too long.

I think the way back to cities starts and ends with train companies and councils with their commuter parking taxes.

I have always WFH from day one. It is just like being a student and I love it. You have deadlines to meet, you have to keep a printer scanner working and have a safe place to go if your broadband breaks down. I had to make a conscious effort to arrange brunch/gym/dates with friends but I like that I can choose who I hang out with rather than being thrown in an office with whoever.
Also for those feeling threatened by company potentially outsourcing to India, you don’t have anything to worry about. India does offer excellent IT support but the cultural gap means dealing with Indian staff is extremely time consuming. Misunderstanding, misinformation and much more.
I also don’t think young people will be missing out on the “good old days of office socialisation”. Humans are social animals and we always come up with ingenious ways to socialise, I am expecting something rather exciting to happen.

The downside is that WFH does require much more self restraint and discipline . You won’t have anyone sitting on top of you to get things done. To be fair the prospect of losing one’s job for incompetency should be motivation enough to get more disciplined.

If there's less demand for office space convert some to housing. That would help with the housing shortage and help city centre businesses as there would be residents there 7 days a week to drink their coffee, buy lunch etc.

I live near a fairly mediocre town which is currently building vast amounts of apartments in the town centre. I'm not keen on the sky scraper look but it has to be said, that going forward, having lots of people actually living right where the shops, cafes, restaurants, cinemas etc are is probably the only way a traditional town centre is going to survive.

@Lindy2

If there's less demand for office space convert some to housing. That would help with the housing shortage and help city centre businesses as there would be residents there 7 days a week to drink their coffee, buy lunch etc.

I live near a fairly mediocre town which is currently building vast amounts of apartments in the town centre. I'm not keen on the sky scraper look but it has to be said, that going forward, having lots of people actually living right where the shops, cafes, restaurants, cinemas etc are is probably the only way a traditional town centre is going to survive.

It makes bad housing though. Even conservative MP s refer to converted offices as 'the slums of the future'.

The alternative is one or two days per week.

If the response in March to Covid 19 had been quicker, fewer deaths would have occurred, schools, non-food shops and leisure activities would have resumed sooner, and perhaps people would feel more confident about going to an office.

Also unconvinced that converting empty office space into housing the answer. I am biased though as I’m in London surrounded by hundreds of apartments in converted high rise buildings that do little else apart from blight our views and block sunlight. Local residents can’t afford to live in these blocks (developers typically allocate a handful of flats as ‘affordable’ housing) so obviously they just sit empty. Who else apart from overseas investors will pay £600k – £2million for tiny characterless 2 bed flats.

Not everyone worked in City centre to start with . I was office based but in suburban business park type place. They are opening our office space up but very much reduced capacity and you have to book a space if you want to go in. Meanwhile WFH is advocated for my particular role and as I'm public service wouldn't see it ever being outsourced to another country.

Good point though about WFH being difficult for youngsters and those new to work . My son is 19 and only been working for 2 years but he works on a local industrial estate and has been working throughout .

@Eastie77

Also unconvinced that converting empty office space into housing the answer. I am biased though as I’m in London surrounded by hundreds of apartments in converted high rise buildings that do little else apart from blight our views and block sunlight. Local residents can’t afford to live in these blocks (developers typically allocate a handful of flats as ‘affordable’ housing) so obviously they just sit empty. Who else apart from overseas investors will pay £600k – £2million for tiny characterless 2 bed flats.

I also wonder if there's any point in living in Zone 1 when it's no longer an advantage. People living so centrally usually do it for a short commute, or less discrimination - I know I've been turned down for jobs in the past for "living too far away". If there's no longer a work-related advantage to living so centrally, what is the point of living there?

Well prices will need to come down, I can't believe paid that much for them pre Covid.

I’m happy for city centres to be empty and local areas to be revitalised. Commuting is unpleasant and a waste of time, as well as causing pollution. It’s much nicer to WFH or have a short commute. Local cafes are doing a roaring trade in lunches and a new cafe is opening just down the road from me. Humans aren’t designed to sit in tin cans for hours every day, and my unwillingness to do so has hampered my career... until now.

There needs to be something for everyone. People who like WFH should be able to, people who like going into an office should be able to. Some kind of middle ground must be possible - the commute was always packed, train or traffic jam, so there’s plenty of margin for more people to WFH with enough still going in to keep the shops and cafes going.

I agree with Stirmecrazy on page 1. Are we going to throw our young people to the dogs? Just shrug and say, Well, if there’s a generation without work, tough. And expecting every 20-something to work in their bedroom forever... great. There will be huge mental health problems.

Furthermore, do you realise how much pension fu d money is invested in commercial property? Yours/mine/everyone’s pension will be worth 30p a year if (particularly London) offices/shopping centres are abandoned.

But during the time I've been working from home, I haven't been to any local cafes. I've made most of my own food at home, when I would previously have bought lunch from Pret. I don't need to go out, except for a weekly supermarket shop.

I don't get all this "working at a cafe with a laptop" thing - what happens when you need the loo? Do you have to pack up all your stuff and take it with you? There must be so much risk of theft when you're in a public place.

I thought you lot might be interested in this story from the Daily Mash (a satirical website) www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/food/i-am-not-worth-6-50-confirms-artisan-sausage-roll-20200220193681

It’s a real opportunity to do some of that “levelling up” the government claimed to want. Less dominance of big city swanky offices and more smaller regional hubs with a mix of WFH and office based.

I have no doubt none of that will actually happen, but now would have been the time to do it if the government actually cared about the regions .

Are we going to throw our young people to the dogs? Just shrug and say, Well, if there’s a generation without work, tough. And expecting every 20-something to work in their bedroom forever... great. There will be huge mental health problems.

Tbf Id say we've already thrown them to the dogs, expensive education costs, ridiculous housing costs, wage stagnation, lack of job security. State pension when they retire? Free NHS when they are over 60? Doubt it.

In fact: www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/lifestyle/what-the-hell-am-i-doing-here-asks-remote-worker-still-living-in-london-20200828199890

WFH is not the dream for everyone. Young people in shared flats, people who live alone, people who enjoy the only bit of peace their commute gives them, people who need occasionally to have real conversations with their colleagues or to discuss something personal or sensitive not over company monitored systems. There needs to be a balance.

I'm going to head back into work next week. I've always worked one day a week from home but I'm now finding its so hard to get things done and to separate my home life from work. I don't mind wearing a mask on the tube. I suspect I may be one of few though. I am concerned though about things like London weighting- I assume if no one has to come to work anymore that will no longer need to be paid? And also the costs of wfh during the winter? I don't think the savings I'll make not buying a coffee from Pret every day will make up that shortfall...

No one will convince me of the logic not allowing groups of 30+ to meet but saying its fine to be in an office with 50+ people for 8 hours and all using a small number of toilets.

I think a massive number of employers can now see WFH working really well and seeing no reason to pay for expensive office costs. I think we'll see more shared spaces start up so business have access to more flexible space. I also think people will be spending some of the money they would have spent on local services. This will just take time.

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

Well, i work for a large sub contracting IT company and we are outsourcing many functions to Bulgaria, its easy & it works, many of our UK staff have been laid off and replaced with cheaper workers/office space in Sophia, all you need is hi-speed SIP/ internet connections, where the cloud servers are or the staff is immaterial.

The avg % of european workers back in the office is 72%, in the UK 34%, Germany is even higher.

I did read somewhere a couple of years ago that white collar jobs would be the new mines in terms of job losses, due to AI and outsourcing to cheaper countries. But I don’t think anyone foresaw this being unbelievably accelerated because of a virus particle.