Return to our offices? No chance!

As I'm writing this faced with a big deluge of rain that meant going out after lunch just wasn't going to be happening a couple of days before publication one recurring story is around people who it has to be said were working in offices before all the Covid restrictions came in March.

Back then as you might well recall we were told to Stay Home and only to work if we can from home and a lot of people and organizations adapted to do just that from banks to people doing engineering drawings using phone and computer to work and keep in touch.

 As you can see in this picture of Canary Wharf in London taken during the rush hour, there's not many people actually in the offices coming of the transport networks to the business districts although the numbers vary from occupation to occupation.

In some respects the UK has been a bit behind the curve when it comes to working from home compared with other countries  such as Canada and the States but it appears Covid give it a mighty big jolt in little over five months.

It isn't that people aren't working although some are not such as those in hospitality and entertainment where health measures needed to control the virus effectively prevent them from working at all it's that actually business and workers have found this is working for them with potentially lower office costs and far less time commuting on overcrowded trains and buses.

You might think "What's the problem"?

This homeworking is effecting the viability of businesses within those business districts such as the sandwich bars, coffee houses and dry cleaners with their daily takings well down on normal and that has lead to some such as the C.B.I. to push for a return to working from offices.

Personally having been there and done it frankly if I could work from home just calling in to meet with my supervisor and a few colleagues and any face to face training a couple of days per month to be frank I just would because it's a waste of my time having spent two hours twenty on a good day travelling and sometimes longer otherwise.

Another set of issues is about social distance and its impact starting the shocking fact that at least a third of staff can't be socially distanced in offices even masked so some would have to be accommodated elsewhere.

Then there's public transportation where capacity is down to less than 40% of normal due to social distancing so capacity is impacted during the rush hour making it hard to get people in and having more people come in using private cars to get around that only adds to road congestion and pollution.

In Charles Dicken's day you had to work in an office as a clerk with oil light, quill and ink surrounded by people as there was no other way of sharing information and generally getting things done.

Those businesses in the business district came into being where they did to serve those needs but today it is just so unnecessary so we might as well accept it as indeed a number of big companies have and just move with the times.

That's why despite the rally cry of "go back to your offices" from the CBI and the Business Minister I rather suspect we're not. Time has moved on.