After more than a year of remote work, the future looks hybrid: a mix of office and home-based working.
The hope in many companies is that this sort of working pattern will allow employees to do focused work at home, reduce commutes and enable them to better balance professional and personal lives. In turn, offices will become a destination for innovation, collaboration, networking, coaching and socialising.
To this end, HSBC has announced that it is scrapping executive offices to make space for hot-desking and communal spaces. Noel Quinn, its chief executive, told the Financial Times: “I won’t be in the office five days a week . . . It’s the new reality of life.” Sarah Willett, chief people officer at The Very Group, operator of Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com, the online retailers, says feedback from engagement surveys has been that employees want to retain elements of remote working when the UK reopens. “We’ll move to a hybrid working model comprising time at home and time in the office. We want our colleagues to be productive at home and collaborative in the office,” she says.