Working from Home in the office free era

As 2020 ended and we rolled into 2021 many hoped that the new year would see the end of Covid19 that had brought about massive global change to the working patterns and place of many.

The message of Work from home has seen the global workforce suddenly shift from the daily commute for some lasting hours into a small office to do their job and then again face the commute home.

For many the idea of working from home before covid19 would not have even been a thought likewise for many businesses big and small the idea of their employees working remotely from dispersed across a virtual office space and left to their own devices would not have entered into the plan.

Now the world has flipped a full 180 and working from home is the default option with many large and small business planning to make it a permanent operating model going forward having honed the operation through necessity over the last year and having seen the productivity and savings alongside employees not having to face the commute into the office daily.

For some working from home of paces that are not traditional offices is nothing new many freelancers in the digital and creative sector for example have done this for years many having gone freelance to get away from the traditional office-based careers and enjoy a more work home life balance.

Covid19 has acted as a catalyst for the change that was happening in a much more accelerated way forcing the change to take pace rapidly rather than evolve over time to allow systems to change and new activity's and usage of the spaces vacated by the office exoduses.

The impact f this change while for man will deliver a life work balance and remove the daily commute has some down sides that need to be considered and live everything new ways evolve to compensate and rebalance.

In the office space the social interaction and the random things this can generate from the mental health and wellbeing benefits to ideas forming out of random conversations to the more personal relationships that form in the workplace also.

Beyond the inter office changes the actual office space becomes a space that needs a new purpose and the wider community that has evolved around the office space to support it from the café that sells to the employees their lunch to the morning newspaper sold on the way into the office to the wider retail that has used the office spaces as a footfall anchor.

The office has acted as a catalyst and anchor for an eco-system that has evolved around but as with other industrial revolutions the move out the office will be one that we will evolve beyond and the long-term benefits are there for the taking as a new normal emerges.

The big question is what to do with the forests of glass and steel that have grown across nations as office space what future will these monuments to the 9-5 era grow into now?