Big Offices to Be a Thing of the Past?

I can't say I miss it. I miss the banter a little, but I dont miss people shouting in their headset or across tables to other colleagues, people doing remarks on what I'm wearing or eating, and I start earlier at home so finish earlier which suits me nicely. I can also wear harem pants all day (gonna have a reality check when I try my jeans next ) and zero make up.

The office I was working from was far too big anyway but a lot of these companies sign up to a long term lease (10 years I believe for my office) so they'll be stuck with all the space for now. I certainly think offices will get smaller in the long term, yes. This period has been a good test of trust in both technology and people working from home.

it is definitely time that big offices downsize as it's not effective or productive to have that many people stuck in one building - whenever you have a fire drill, you can see why

With the social distancing that we all need to adhere to perhaps the large offices will stay but may only have 10 people when they used to hold 100?

I used to work in big corporate businesses in London and the better companies had already embraced working from home many, many years ago. It seems that the SMEs are only just catching up now (when they were forced).

There is an old thought process, by some companies, that employees cannot be trusted to work from home. I think, on the whole, most people can be trusted to work from home and can be more efficient too. Less time travelling, better work life balance and a happier workforce.

I do miss the banter of the office, now that I mostly work from home. However, teams communicate through Skype, Zoom, Blue Jeans, Google Teams and a plethora of other video conferencing platforms; it's easy to communicate.

If there is something good to come out of the pandemic, this could be one positive action for so many.

Xx

This is an issue our offices are facing. I work in the public sector and we have large offices in central London and when we travel there we are expected to take our latops and 'hot desk' so just connect to a screen, keyboard and mouse that's probably been used by lots of different people throughout the day. Tables are long so you are sat either side and facing people you don't know. And before you have even found a desk you have been crammed in a lift with 20 other people.