Although increased flexibility is supposedly ending the need for horrible commuting and crammed overpriced cities, more people are actually moving into urban areas and many services are becoming centralised.<\/p>\n
To get some feedback on this and other apparent contradictions Crown Workspace spoke to IDG Connect and answered the following questions:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not so much homeworking that is the issue \u2013 it is flexible or smart working. The new generation of talent expects it; they see the old days of arriving in an office at 9am and leaving at 5pm as something which is dated. What they want is an office which allows them to work from home or on the road when necessary.<\/p>\n
Many are still drawn by city living, however, and London remains a magnet for people all over the world. So homeworking doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that everyone working at home is doing so in the middle of the countryside.<\/p>\n
The challenge for businesses is to provide space which makes working in the office or working flexible as seamless as possible. It\u2019s something which many businesses are embracing because it has commercial benefits. Reducing the size of offices has huge financial savings in terms of business rates and heating, lighting etc. These days a company with 200 employees doesn\u2019t need 200 desks. Workplace studies have shown that 40% of desk space simply isn\u2019t used.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t change human nature. People still have a desire for companionship, to work together and meet colleagues. We\u2019ve seen a kick-back from some of our clients, with companies realising the value of teamwork. They want to create a workspace which tempts people back into the office. Businesses are valuing face to face interaction and team play. They are realising you can\u2019t build a team ethic when people are working at home and not in a team. However they also know that flexible working is key to attracting new talent. There\u2019s a real possibility of missing out on graduate talent if you ask them to sit at the same desk every day from 9am to 5pm. Getting the balance right is so important.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a difficult question to answer because it depends as much on social and economic trends as on workplace trends. Flexible working does mean you can live wherever you like and still work for a city centre business. It also means that employers have a much wider scope when looking for talent. If the person you want lives in rural Wales then why should that stop you employing them? Smart working makes it possible. But does it change where people want to live? I\u2019m not so sure about that.<\/p>\n
Flexible working will boom most significantly in areas of the world where property prices are high \u2013 in Hong Kong or Singapore for instance. The benefits for businesses downsizing office space in these regions are huge.<\/p>\n
There will probably always be traditionalists who want to work 9 to 5, sit at the same desk every day and talk to the same people in their lunch break every day. We\u2019re unlikely to see that die all together. But what flexible working does is provide everyone with an individually tailored option for the way they work. It should work for everyone.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s different to the old days is that workers are trusted more to work outside the office now.\u00a0 There\u2019s no such thing as a job for life so workers are assessed on their productivity, on how they meet deadlines and the volume of work they do \u2013 so the suspicion they would sit at home in their pyjamas and doing nothing all day has pretty much gone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Workplace of 2026 shows people working outside the office, whilst empty buildings will become ever-more high-tech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"contentshake_article_id":"","yoast_head":"\n