Hybrid office location - city centre, or out of town?

[blutterfly]

You work in consulting. Most of your job is on email/teams calls but your company want you in the office 1-2 days a week to build team relationships and to host client meetings, do interviews, collaborate etc. Rest of the week you can work anywhere.

Would you rather

A - an office that had parking, easy road/bus access, but not good rail connections and no local shops/cafes/sandwiches (BYO lunch)

B - an office in busy city centre and all its amenities, good rail and bus connections but limited parking and hideous traffic

C - a rural out of town office with no rail connections but ample parking, outdoor space, away from hustle of city but no shops/cafes within 2 miles (BYO lunch)

Am about to launch a new office and struggling with where to locate it. I figure if we are hoping to encourage people in 2 days they might want a ‘destination’ eg shops and cafes nearby, but does that outweigh transport ease?

Reading your answers I think it really splits on whether you are in a city centre location and how many of your staff drives. We are in a town and very few lives nearby enough to take public transport in. Everyone drives, mostly about 30min away. I'm further. There's no public transport to my office, even from pre-covid days. Someone already suggested looking at NCP carparks and get a discount for staff. That's a good compromise. A lot of rural locations actually don't have enough car parks. DH has one and there's a bun fight for the limited car parking. Having multistorey carpark nearby is actually nice. Don't like the congestions though. Both DH and I are rarely commuting however. 1-2 days are very high expectations.

B and encourage staff to be car free or to park and ride by offering incentives like subsidised travel costs.

being stuck in an industrial park type place is miserable when you are craving a Mars bar and the vending machine is playing up, or someone has forgotten to bring in the milk, or you are working late and look out of the window at a bleak landscape fit only for flat batteries, unexpected punctures and serial murderers.

I used to work in B and now work in C. I found B much easier to get to, but I have now got used to making packed lunches and going out for a walk in the woods at lunchtime - it's saving me so much money even factoring in the fact that I now have to pay for extra petrol (I used to cycle to work every day).

Having said that, I'm happier now I've worked out a way to get to the city centre after work using a folding bike and a train station 3 miles away, as that's the bit I felt I was missing out on.

As someone who has been recently called back into the office for 'collaboration' which we've all been doing perfectly fine via teams and zoom for 3 years think carefully about this!

The four occasions I've gone into the office people are so busy trying to get their work done in the time period in the office collaboration has actually gone down as we are just trying to get done and get our back home! We've also lost a fair proportion of good staff as it wasn't practice with the office move to get in and out and it costs money to travel!

Think long and hard about if this is actually needed or just a PR exercise because you as management fancy coming into the office!

As much as I hate using public transport, I'd always opt for B and good transport links over having a car park.

Plus, whilst some of the work force won't be inclined to socialise together, it would be a much more natural thing to do if there's local restaurants or bars to the office.

Whilst I'm as antisocial as they come, I do recognise that one of the better parts of office working is that you see people, you talk to them, possibly grab lunch together etc. As cheesy as it sounds, this is the stuff that builds a sense of team and belonging, especially for younger workers who haven't built up any kind of network yet. You're unlikely to get that if people are just having sandwiches at their desks (which always happens in my experience if there's nowhere local to eat).

Good point from elephantmarchingin.

For what an office costs you could organise some excellent away days.

Can there be a patio or outdoor seating area?

We have a terrace and it is very much loved and used. And instagrammed.

I do think, if you want people to commute in you have to make work something other than desks in a room.

I think it really really depends on the quality of public transport.

I suspect a lot of the posters are thinking about London/big city.

I live in a place with supposed good transport links but to get to the city centre from where I live is a 5 minute walk and then a 25 minute bus ride, which goes every 30 min. Or a 10 minute drive and pay exorbitant parking. My husband works in the centre and cycles because he doesn't fancy either of these options. Young adult DS doesn't want to work in the city centre because of the hassle of getting there.

If that's the sort of good public transport links that OP refers to, then that's very different to regular buses that are always there when you want them and go to where her employees will live.

I totally agree on your points. Coming into the office needs to be meaningful - ie face to face team meetings, a bit of flex to allow lunch and walks to help staff build bonds. I’m opening a brand new team and will be recruiting from scratch - we will need some face time to get to know each other and also train up new members of staff.

There’s also a well-being factor in hybrid working I feel. For me, wfh 5 days a week has led to some very low days, almost depression. I have physically dragged myself into the office a day a week at points just to get contact with other humans, to be able to wear smarter clothes, to get away from the laundry/house stuff that’s staring at me every time I go for a wee.

Very similar public transport issues here. Buses are infrequent and unreliable (1 bus per hr often cancelled). I can get the train into this centre, but I would have to drive 10mins to station, park at £4 a day, then get 2 trains (once every half hour) then walk. I might as well drive in and pay £8 a day.

No terrace but huge landscaped public park opposite option B. Lots of on street cafes and bars 2mins walk away, as well as post office, bank.

I do this job and if it was B I'd move jobs/not apply in the first place.

I've worked in B and the traffic and lack of parking caused a lot of stress. Huge stresses at times! But some colleagues couldn't drive so they were able to work there whereas they wouldn't be able to work in A or C.

Not rtft but A and C sound very similar. Are these offices completely on their Own? Surely if there are other offices nearby there are lunch facilities.

A is an office on a business park, lunch van comes in and there are some cafes within 15 mins walk out of the business park to some shops nearby.

C would be up a country lane type office, lovely rural setting but taking other posters comments, a PITA during winter months and clients probably will be requesting taxis to get there

In that case I would vote for A.

I work in an A type place now, and really don't miss even the good aspects of being in a city centre .

We fairly recently had this exact argument at work
we all went for B. No regrets.

some colleagues rely on public transport which makes it a clear front runner. But we all enjoy the lunch and shops options.

A - parking is vital for me but I don’t want to have to drive miles! I have things on before and after work and need to be able to just hop in my car, pick kids up, do the shopping, go to gym etc. I’d hate to work in the city. Too many people, expensive, usually a bit grim as well! Not for me.

my office is 6 miles away with plenty of parking. There is even a garden and picnic benches outside 😄

No idea why that came up bold

I meant to mention we are quite flexible with working hours which helps a lot with traffic. Lots of people tend to come in early but then leave again about 4.

A sounds like the worst of all worlds.

Personally, I would prefer B as I have access to nice walks etc when I'm wfh.

Depends to some extent on how bad the parking issues are. If I'm going to have to drive around for hours each morning looking for somewhere to park or if I'm going to have to spend a small fortune on parking, then I wouldn't be so keen.

I work in a city office with no parking and a lot of people including me, use Park and Ride facilities. It is probably quicker to park and have a bus ride than it would be to drive all the way to the office through rush hour traffic.

For every person like me who’d prefer B, there’s someone who would quit rather than work in a city centre. Incidentally I feel the same way about A and C. If you moved out of the city I’d resign. No judgement there, it just isn’t where I want to be.

Ultimately you’re never going to please all of the people all of the time. An element of churn always happens when a business moves offices. It comes down to what’s best for the business in terms of cost, accessibility, attracting talent, and overheads. In consulting an element of prestige will come into it too — it sounds really knee jerk and judgy (and in some ways it is) but as a client I’d write you off as a bit parochial if I knew your offices were somewhere the staff went to a van for their lunch.

I think b if it’s only a day or 2 a week. Most folk can use public transport/park and ride, and it’s nice to have a day or 2 in the city so do all the little jobs at lunch time like clothes returns or nails.

Although a rural office sounds idyllic it would be a pain in the hole during the winter and as a previous poster mentioned, troublesome for clients or people visiting from other offices to get to.

we have 2 very central city centre offices and one rural on the outskirts of a town, it’s a pain getting there by anything other than car, it also has a much smaller social aspect than the other 2 offices as you can’t do drinks/food after work as everyone is driving in different directions

B every time. B is mostly where I've worked. When I've worked in an A/C it has been joyless. Nothing to do at lunchtime. Any kind of socials after work are a pain and essentially don't happen. The kinds of people who want to work in those locations mean your recruitment choices are narrower.

A or B for me, but my view is influenced by the fact that I have a visual impairment and cannot drive. Transport links are therefore important and might also be so for current or future staff.