THE GREAT “RETURN TO WORK” AND WHY WE NEED TO LOOK AT OFFICE SPACE DIFFERENTLY
The return to offices has been a gradual process, staff are looking for a balanced working life and so employers are seeking ways of making the commute to the office simpler, writes Garret Flower, CEO and Founder of ParkOffice
T
he media talks about the “return to office” as some impending mystical time. You would almost be led to believe that one day a switch will be flicked and boom everyone will be back. The reality is very different. For many, the return to office is currently happening; for many more, it happened months ago. While large numbers of multinational companies have been understandably slow to return to the office, many SMEs and indigenous employers have been back
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to the office for months now. So what can we learn from these companies? Through my work, I’ve been lucky enough to have a front-row view of the return to the office for tens of thousands of employees across hundreds of employers in over 20 countries around the world. Here are some of the key takeaways: People do want to go back, just not all of the time - Don’t always believe what you read in the papers. It seems every day there is another report
from a remote working software provider which is outlining how the office is dead forever and that nobody wants to work from the office ever again. On the ground, this is playing out very differently. There is an undoubted segment of employees who would be happy to never see the inside of an office ever again. By and large though, workers are looking for balance. The rigidity of 9-5, Monday to Friday might be a thing of the past for most employers. However, staff are
