When it becomes possible to return to the office in a few weeks, managers will have to prepare for more coordination work. This will be necessary because some employees will probably continue to work from home, while others will prefer to go to the office.
However, very few employers – and employees – want permanent home offices, as various surveys show. Accordingly, only 6.4 percent of companies currently want to reduce their office space. This is pointed out by experts at Larbig & Mortag Immobilien in Cologne.
During the first lockdown, many employees were enthusiastic about being able to work remotely. Employers were also proud to have implemented mobile working within such a short time. Before the pandemic, many managers were skeptical about working from home.
By the second lockdown, this euphoria had largely evaporated and given way to disillusionment. This phase lasted much longer, extending into the dark winter months and revealing the limitations of mobile working to everyone involved: managers found it difficult to lead and motivate employees from a distance. Many employees felt socially isolated within their own four walls and longed for a life with structure and personal interaction. In a study by the Technical University of Darmstadt, 40 percent said they were significantly less productive at home than in the office. For 14 percent, their work performance was better at home than in the office. Permanent teleworking also presents new challenges when it comes to onboarding new employees if they cannot be trained in the office but only via video conferencing.
At the same time, this major experiment in the modern office world is being continuously monitored by scientists. Surveys and studies on the future of office work are published on a monthly basis.
A few theories are emerging:
- Only a minority of companies want to allow employees to work remotely more than two days a week. Even international tech companies such as Google have abandoned the idea of allowing all employees to work remotely permanently in the future, provided they wish to do so.
- 60 percent of employees reject permanent home office (source: ISG Institute). The majority want a maximum of one or two home office days per week. This is in line with the wishes of many employers.
- According to a survey of 1,200 companies, only 6.4 percent want to reduce their office space in the future (source: Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft).
- So far, there are no signs that office users (as a proportion of their workforce) are looking for less office space than before the crisis.
- A complete return to the working structures that prevailed before Corona will only rarely occur. Not least because employees are demanding flexible working hours and locations. Those who insist on rigid structures may find it difficult to recruit employees in the future.
If, in the future, some members of the workforce are likely to be working from home while their colleagues are in the office, work processes will also change. "More coordination is needed if, for example, you want to organize a meeting in the office with all the team members involved, because one or more participants may be working from home. Spontaneous get-togethers will become more difficult," explains Uwe Mortag, managing director of Larbig & Mortag Immobilien. The pandemic phase, on the other hand, has shown that personal interaction on site promotes creativity and that ideas and solutions are found better and faster in spontaneous conversations. A video conference can hardly achieve this.
Don't be cut off from the "office grapevine"
Employees who would like to work remotely more often in the future must be careful not to become "disconnected" when many of their colleagues are spending more time at the office. This applies to the internal flow of information as well as to personal exchanges and the next career steps. Managers are faced with the challenge of treating them equally to colleagues who are permanently present in the office and therefore more visible.
New requirements for office space
A modern work and corporate culture will be reflected even more in cost-effective options for adapting office space. Changing teams are increasingly working on different tasks. Accordingly, conference and group offices of various sizes must be feasible, according to expert Mortag. Many office users also want comfortable quiet areas for concentrated work, as well as break and communication areas. Ultimately, the ISG survey also shows that the more attractive an office workplace is, the more productive employees are. This requires, among other things, a good indoor climate, modern IT technology, and ergonomic furniture.
The bottom line is that companies will only be able to reduce office space and save on rent if a large number of employees regularly work remotely. To save rental space, companies need to switch to desk sharing. However, this means that not every employee will have their own desk in the office, which usually requires a cultural change within the company. "However, the rental space saved after the coronavirus pandemic through home offices and modern desk sharing in the office does not solve the challenges of corporate identity, communication, and employee retention. Many of our customers are currently realizing this, and it is triggering a rethink," says Mortag, describing the current situation on the office real estate market.
