AIBU to close our office?

[Bonden]

I can’t be the only business owner with this dilemma as offices across the UK that used to be full of people during office hours now have maybe 20% of staff in on any day, or are empty 3 days a week.

My company has sales people who WFH, and come to the office maybe 2 x a month. And we have 12 people whose place of work is our office.

To run the office costs about 40k a year.

AIBU to give up the lease, put everyone on a WFH contract, and simply rent meeting spaces as and when required?

YANBU. Staff will likely be grateful too. I rarely go to the office now. I have a long commute and there is usually only one or two others in when I go.

Bosses are very relaxed about people not going in but want to keep the building. Seems a waste of money to me.

I used to work for a blue chip company that closed the office (was costing £500,000 a year) and then just had meetings at a venue that was hireable. It was fine, although given that we were all WFH, it did impact upon team spirit/productivity, the ability to learn from each other and the social aspect of it. Perhaps an interim step could be smaller premises.

A friend with a family business left his purpose built rented office (5 rooms and a reception/meeting area) and now has a two room set up over a high street shop. His PA (his DW) and him are the only ones in every day. The remaining 7 staff WFH and come in as and when required.

If your business doesn’t rely on collaboration then it could be a good way to save money. But you need to support managers in developing the skills they need to manage remote workers and recognize that you will probably need increased IT infrastructure and may get staff turnover (may not - some people hate WFH, others love it).

Just check about the alternatives and perhaps set one day a month where an office is available. Also somewhere for interviews etc and a PO Box for correspondence.

Hope somehow the 40k saving can benefit your customers in lower charges.

Perhaps float the idea past those who are permanent office staff first? Some may prefer an office base and/or not have somewhere suitable to WFH so it could be a downsize with access to hire a meeting room for when you need more space is better than entirely losing the office. There are also the practicalities of where to keep any physical items e.g. storage also has to be paid for. Could you sublet part of the existing office to offset the cost?

Often, the office is key to how staff perceive the company's identity/base, so something small is better than nothing at all, and getting sales teams together at least monthly with the chance to have a quick word with someone who is office-based face-to-face shouldn't be ignored.

I'm seeing a lot of companies move to serviced offices with options to rent more space as required, but they're not necessarily saving much money overall.

Do it. You'll find you open up a much bigger and better talent-pool when you want to hire more staff as well.

Could you compromise and hire a smaller office.

I feel like your existing staff may be fine, but training new starters would be a nightmare. You may also lose key staff who prefer to work from an office.

Do off sites instead. We used to do 3 days of an intensive one in a foreign location - where we also had workers. Worked really well. And made a big difference because you got to know people in a way we never would have otherwise.

I'd have a meeting with the 12 who work in the office and discuss informally the options and ask them their thoughts. If the hardest worker decided to leave because of it, would it impact you by the £40k a year you'd save? Would a smaller premises be a better option? Or would they all be happy to WFH permanently?

I knew of one person who would rather leave than work from home, because her husband didn't want her working at home for a reason we never worked out. But that was her decision to make and she made it.

I've been involved in offices closing, staff being moved across the country and you really have to weigh up the pros and cons of it before you make the decision. Sometimes it is a bigger PITA than you could ever have thought whilst other times everyone was over the moon.

I'm a non exec on the board of a company who gave up their office and moved everyone to WFH to save costs due to downturn in business. They're quite a flexible company anyway and some more remote employees did WFH most of the time. It did mean some costs in providing equipment, upgrading wifi and security etc. There was a weekly Teams call for all staff to update on what was happening and discuss work.
Within 6 months the employees petitioned to go back to office working. . Some of the reasons given were young children at home, partner home working causing friction, and several said they missed the social aspect. Two had left as they felt they missed on learning and developing from more experienced colleagues.
We now have a small area in a shared office. It's not great as some of the other tenants aren't very respectful and there are concerns around confidentiality and security. There are complaints that private rooms have to be pre booked yet often lie empty. Sometimes there's only one person in, other times there are more people than desks.
I'd think through all the options carefully and consult with staff quite thoroughly.

I’d consult with the people who work in the office regularly. Personally I wouldn’t want a job that was 100% wfh and I also prefer more in person contact during the onboarding process, but these are personal preferences and your team may be different.

Look into flex space, I manage a building that provides flexible office space to around 60 other businesses. Contracts start from as little as 3 months and all bills are included, we even have an on-site gym that's free for clients to use. Definitely the way forward for businesses like yours. Just don't go with a big name like Regis.

I think going into the office for the sake of it is getting a bit dated. Covid showed that people don’t necessarily need to travel to and from the office daily to do the same job you can do at home. Plus it’s better for the environment.

Much as I love working from home, I'd go mad if I couldn't see my team-mates and close colleagues 3-4 times a month. It probably depends on the work but you miss out on serendipitous conversations etc.

Could you get a smaller office, or co-let one for set days a week?

This is what I forgot to add. We had to advertise a role 3 or 4 times last year because we require staff to come into the office at least 50% of the time. There were some excellent candidates who applied for the role, but none of them lived close enough to attend the office. We eventually filled the roles, but the successful candidates were nowhere near as good as what we would have got if we had been able to offer the roles on a fully remote basis.

YANBU, as long as you can consider short term rentals for a bit of team engagement / development a few times a year.

On the flip side, this also shows why some employers now scale back WFH frequency. I often see threads here where posters are outraged they need to go back to the office more, not considering how much it costs the employer to have an office and needing it to serve its purpose.

Outside of Mumsnet, not everyone has a home large enough to accommodate a home office for people to WFH. Not much fun trying to do a work meeting perched on the bed or in a cramped messy kitchen

We have recently downsized and offer a mixture of office base/WFH depending on job role and personal choice
Not everyone has a suitable set up for WFH, I don’t have an office at home and bedrooms are too small so have a small area in lounge which I have to negotiate with DS as he does a mixture of site visits and WFH

I'm guessing that you're asking this question because you're concerned how the office staff will feel

Would you be able to cover the cost of a workspace for them? I mean, if you're looking for brownie points with your staff, that might be something that people want. You'd have to put a limit on it, of course.

if anyone is printing regularly, they probably want the cost of that covered.

YANBU, I would check with the staff who regularly come in though.
Personally I would be delighted, I find I am more productive from home and it's better for my wellbeing and work/life balance, I appreciate not everyone is the same though (DS is a teenager so it's easy for me to WFH). As a bonus it's helpful for the environment and helps with cost of living as I am not travelling to work.
If you have any work from home jobs to advertise check out the work from home hub on Facebook, who have a large following of people looking for work from home jobs.

I like working from home, and do it 2-3 days a week, but I find I get quite antisocial if I do it 5 days. I used to work for a company that went from 2-3 days a week to a horrible shared office where you had to book a desk and it was small and noisy. It was a factor in leaving.

However, I get what you're saying, but you should be careful about how staff will react and find out from them what they think. Having a permanent desk if you're in most of the time would have made a huge difference for me. (Maybe a sign to say you're not in today so others can use it when they're not in).

And think about how you will organise team get-togethers and make sure people communicate. You need to organise more formal meetings, perhaps get people using teams chat or slack better.

Definitely check with your staff who go into the office regularly. I hate WFH and need to be in the office daily and be with people. I do have space at home to WFH and you will need to provide monitors, keyboards etc. But if it was me, I would be scrolling socials all day, watching TV as ADHD brain means I procrastinate and in the office I cannot do that!

The company I work for closed the office during Covid and we’ve never gone back. We all wfh and have rented space in London for meetings that are needed. You need to invest in excellent IT though. We all say we ‘see’ each other more as Teams allows it - before everyone was traveling and in external meetings and we were never in the office at the same time anyway. I LOVE working full time from home. I’m so much more efficient and definitely work longer hours as it’s easy to pick up extra work around my life. Plus the odd commute to London feels like a treat nowadays rather than the torture it used to be!

Much better to rent a co-op working space as and when you need it. Do the current office workers actually like working in an office? I am mandated 2 days per week in the office but I wish it was less because public transport and commuting in my city is a right ballache. Plus I live in a place that's super expensive to buy or rent property. If I had to go in the office less often I would move further away where it's cheaper.