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.

My commute only cost £40 a month and that will easily be swallowed up by additional heating and electricity bills, particularly over the winter.

Our heating bill shouldn't change much as we have the heating on during the day in the depths of winter anyway.

Our little town, like many other residential areas, has been booming since lockdown was eased in June. As always there are winners and losers.

People like to spend money, they might just spend it differently.
That's a really interesting point. I think you are right. I find myself wondering why we like to spend money and could that change? We have become very good at spending on stuff we don't need. Totally understand not everyone is like this but lots are.

A friend who's only worked retail/food services, applied for and got a WFH admin position. Other jobs will open up.

Hancock said he has no idea if his staff are WFH or in the office (which is a little odd) and seemed to suggest he is more interested in results than presenteeism.

I assume he is still WFH if he doesn't know who is or isn't in the office. It seems as if the government is not quite united on this whole subject.

@Kaiserin

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.

entirely agree

@jewel1968

People like to spend money, they might just spend it differently. That's a really interesting point. I think you are right. I find myself wondering why we like to spend money and could that change? We have become very good at spending on stuff we don't need. Totally understand not everyone is like this but lots are.

Well - if lots of people decided not to spend money, then that could well be a bad thing as money needs to be circulating to keep the economy going.

#chomalungma - I know and I think I last read the 60% of our economy relies on consumer spending. But is that sustainable, especially now?

I suspect that employees in the Uk are in no rush to return to the office compared to their European counterparts as the UK has the longest working hours in Europe.

So right now, they can do the same number of hours but without the insane hour commute each way on top so why rush back into the office.

However, I think businesses will be watching all of this quite closely as whilst there are a lot of well documented benefits of their workforce working from home there will be issues.

For example, how do you gauge the organisations culture whilst working from home? How do those new to the workforce learn, humans do learn by emulating their peers to fit in/progress.

All of these issues will arise and organisations will need to figure out how to adapt or simply resort to the tried and tested method of office based working.

I would imagine that employees are reluctant to return due to the controls that will be in place.

There's no point me doing an hour+ drive to my booked desk in an office that's at 20 percent capacity where there'll be none of my usual colleagues.
No chance to just wander over to another team for an informal chat to get some information that I need, none of the usual office banter and no one to go for a coffee with at lunchtime.
There's just no benefit to it.

"It's private equity owned anyway" (re it being ok that Prets are being boarded up).

Maybe so, but many pension funds are invested in PE, so a failure in PE doesn't just hit the fat cats, it hits us all...

I worry about the more junior members of my team, they are just not getting the exposure and experience through osmosis that they would get in the office. From I'm hearing they don't tend to have great WFH set-ups either, working off laptops at their dining tables or bedrooms. The more senior people have separate rooms, desks, IT set-up and generally can get on with it (although I've my D.C. around full time so I've had different challenges to contend with).

I would like to go back 1-2 days a week but otherwise WFH (providing DC are at school!). When I am WFH sans DC I really can't see me nipping into town for coffee or lunch though, so not sure that the money I would have spent at Pret etc will now get spent on my local high street.

@Heatherjayne1972

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

Not a pity for cafe and shop owners in towns and villages though which are now buzzing with locals actually at home during the week instead of miles away in the cities. It's just re-balancing and long may that continue. Towns and villages have suffered from a few decades of offices being centralised in a few big cities. The pendulum is simply swinging back again and will find a new equilibrium.

Also couldn't see me nipping into town for a coffee or lunch when the kettle is right there. I'm more likely to work through and finish a bit earlier with a glass of wine..

@Thanksitsgotpockets

Also couldn't see me nipping into town for a coffee or lunch when the kettle is right there. I'm more likely to work through and finish a bit earlier with a glass of wine..

Oh yes

As someone who has work from home for a few years @Thanksitsgotpockets after a while I think people do. I had lunch in a local cafe one a week, nipped out to get tea/fruit/bread regularly and I could actually go to the bank or post office when it was quiet. It also meant I could go to the dentist or GP when I needed to without taking a half day of leave.

Consumer spending should still be encouraged, just not in a way that is detrimental to our future i.e. fast fashion. There was a batshit thread about school uniforms recently where lots of posters admitted they buy a complete new set of uniform for their DC every September even if they don't need it..just because.

In my corner of London there are lots of hipster / cool mum types who focus on 'experiences' rather than conspicuous spending. So they would never buy a Prada bag but would spend £500 on Yoga for their cat (an exaggeration but it's that type of thing!) or ridiculous amounts on a vegan cappuccino. I roll my eyes at a lot of it but at least they are supporting local businesses and not buying 'stuff' they don't need that ends up in landfill.

@Thanksitsgotpockets

I would imagine that employees are reluctant to return due to the controls that will be in place.

There's no point me doing an hour+ drive to my booked desk in an office that's at 20 percent capacity where there'll be none of my usual colleagues.
No chance to just wander over to another team for an informal chat to get some information that I need, none of the usual office banter and no one to go for a coffee with at lunchtime.
There's just no benefit to it.

The reduced capacity is a good point. Our office is open for people who wish to go in but max occupancy is 30-40%. Of the people I've spoken to who have been in, it's been like a ghost town.

It may pick up from next week once the summer holiday period is over but it is still going to be very different. We can't use our communal kitchens - so no ability to make a hot drink, get a cold glass of water, store lunch in the fridge - which sounds silly but makes a difference when you are slogging away for hours.

I don't want to even contemplate how much time it is going to take to get into the building and up the lift to the 30th floor (and down again)

@Disfordarkchocolate

As someone who has work from home for a few years *@Thanksitsgotpockets* after a while I think people do. I had lunch in a local cafe one a week, nipped out to get tea/fruit/bread regularly and I could actually go to the bank or post office when it was quiet. It also meant I could go to the dentist or GP when I needed to without taking a half day of leave.

It has been so difficult for to get out or go anywhere during the week over the past few months that I haven't even contemplated this. Perhaps I can arrange to meet one of my now WFH friends for lunch on a Friday or something

@jewel1968

#chomalungma - I know and I think I last read the 60% of our economy relies on consumer spending. But is that sustainable, especially now?

Economics is fascinating. I was reading about "The paradox of thrift" - about what would happen if people stopped spending money.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift

If people don't spend money on items, then how else can money be circulated around?

Maybe so, but many pension funds are invested in PE, so a failure in PE doesn't just hit the fat cats, it hits us all

I expect that the fat cats have figured out a way to still profit from the covid19 fallout so they'll continue to coin in their riches while hard working lower paid people who thought they were doing the right thing by paying into a pension see the value plummet.

I think that compressed working should be encouraged to open up more social time that isn't condensed to the weekend.

I would also encourage free parking in town centres to promote people to go into their local towns more.

I would cut business rates/rental costs to encourage local small businesses

I would also hope that coffee shops etc would come back into villages creating community again in areas which had been lost. I'd love coffee shops, butchers etc in my village so that I could pop out on my break.

I would turn city centre large shops into housing and make it more affordable. In turn that means there would be more people in city centres and so with a shorter working week would have more time to stimulate the economy

Not a pity for cafe and shop owners in towns and villages though which are now buzzing with locals actually at home during the week instead of miles away in the cities. It's just re-balancing and long may that continue. Towns and villages have suffered from a few decades of offices being centralised in a few big cities. The pendulum is simply swinging back again and will find a new equilibrium

Is that to do with furlough though?

At work, my nearest café is next door. I can get sandwiches in 2 minutes.

On my half hour lunch break at home, I am not going to drive to the town centre, find somewhere to park, go to a café and get a sandwich,

I am more likely to make my own lunch, put on the TV news and maybe go for a short walk.

Me and DH have been WFH since lockdown. At first it was a novelty, then got boring and now it's slipped to being the norm. The lack of commute and associated costs is a good thing, but I don't feel that there is the separation between home and work. We haven't got a separate office, so our dining table has become our office space. DH works off a laptop but I've got a big screen, keyboard and mouse as my job is secretarial so it's better for me to have that set up. My job is also paper heavy so I regularly have deliveries of stuff from the office, adding to the general clutter. I feel like I'm living at work at the moment.

I have been into the office for a couple of days and it was so much better mentally to have that separation again. I definitely wouldn't be able to sit all day in the office with a mask on though.

The local cafes are not benefiting from me as I can't be bothered to walk to them for a cuppa when my kettle and fridge is next to me.

I would often spend a couple of quid in the canteen or cafe near work every day when I walked past them but that was because it was convenient.

My fuel consumption is down and as I am not commuting I am less likely to think about popping into a shop on the way back from work.

This benefits me personally but does mean I am one of those contributing less to the economy.

And given that the economy is going to suffer I am even less likely to go out of my way to spend money. It's a vicious circle.