Simon Harding-Roots’ Post

Offices in cities are hubs of #serendipitous opportunities. The greater the density of people, the more creatively vibrant the group becomes. It’s like a magical mutliplier effect. However, for work requiring intense focus, solitude is essential, and the open plan office design is not made for this, at all. (Especially if you’re sat near… me!) Imo, a blend of hybrid home/office, catering to the different roles of course, is needed. Until offices can offer both communal and private spaces, a hybrid approach with a bias towards working from home is likely to be preferred by many. We’re human, we like comfort of our sofa (and not being near a loud BD reps making calls all day!) I am optimistic about a future that embraces both environments, especially with Mixed Relaity nearing us. However, that serendipitous opportunity multiplier effect, I think, happens at its best in an office, in person. It’s great to hear from Simon Harding-Roots that the office is still alive. 🙌🍻 #wfh #cities #officework

NEW REPORT | Return to the office: How London compares to other global cities, and why this matters 🌍 London office workers have continued to return to the office but not as quickly as other big cities around the world. Explore our findings 👇 https://lnkd.in/eqyrJitP

JLL has provided some perspective on what has worked and what has not worked to bring employees back to the office and economic vitality back to our city centers. It's not just one thing and each company has a unique culture. These solutions need to be thoughtfully tailored to each company's unique circumstances. Ultimately, the office plus commute needs to be more attractive than the home office. Companies making investments in their space need to be thoughtful in their approach. Governments need to do their part to make commuting safe and efficent and provide assistance to businesses that provide the competitive advantage and services that office users need. One of the most important items on this list is negotiating a solution to the RTA/CTA/METRA funding shortfall of $700 million without massive service reductions. #returntooffice #chicagoreturns #publictransit https://lnkd.in/gG6kHRmE https://lnkd.in/gG6kHRmE

A number of reports this week about hybrid, flexibility and London’s office phobia. “Workers in central London spend 2.7 days a week in the office on average, up from 2.2 days a week last year, the poll found. That was less than workers in Paris, who come in 3.5 days a week, while those in Singapore attend 3.2 days a week and workers in New York’s central business district spend 3.1 days in the office.” This doesn’t affect me personally as I have not worked in an office since 2001 aka The Dark Ages. BUT I do have to listen to many other people around me EITHER complaining that they are being made to go into the office when this is unnecessary and pointless OR complaining that none of their team want to come into the office and how annoying it is that no-one understands how important the office is anymore… Surely these two sets of people can’t both be right? This makes me think two things: (1) We no longer have consensus as to what constitutes meaningful work and where and how this should take place. And (2) I love my hometown (London) because we are fundamentally lazy and don’t like doing what other people tell us to do. https://lnkd.in/eGVknd6r

This insightful report from Centre for Cities, reveals that London has the second lowest office attendance of any of the six global cities surveyed. Paris comes out on top, with 3.5 days spent in the office. 🏢 Young people spend more time in the office than any of their co-workers, with an average of 3.1 days per week. 35-44 year olds spend the least time in the office, averaging 2.5 days per week. Do you agree with the report that travel costs are a far larger barrier to office working in London than workers not liking their office environment❓ Hybrid working continues to be the most popular when we are recruiting. Candidates like the flexibility of working from home, but the sense of belonging, the immediate communication, and enhanced collaboration when seeing colleagues in person. What area do you work and how often are you in the office❔ #FlexibleWorking #HybridWorking #WorkFromHome

If the office was a business, it would be out of business: - In 2023, 50% of offices sat empty 7 hours a day! (Source: Density) - Since March 2020, approx. 200 million square feet of vacancy has hit the market (Source: CoStar Group) - Office REIT stock performance is in the crapper Companies needed way less space pre-covid, but it was impossible to predict how much faster covid would correct the market. North America’s hottest pre-covid submarket (Toronto’s Entertainment District) tells the story for us: - Vacancy Rate in March 2020: 3.4% - Vacancy Rate in April 2024: 28.4% (Source: CBRE Canada) Blaming this spike in vacancy on the economy is asinine—it’s because of a revolution surrounding workplace flexibility. Big companies are more awake but still less awake than young companies because: - Many big brands are talent magnets regardless of poorly executed approaches to hybrid work - Entrenched cognitive biases and sunk costs are at play - Real estate costs don’t matter as much Most are operating their offices in a binary way (ppl come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays…otherwise, they sit vacant). So yeah, if the office was a business, it would be busto… If going to the office had to be profitable…it would require better coordination...not mandates. The size of plane an airline flies is based on assessing the number of ppl who have proven they want to fly CONSISTENTLY to that place. What is the consistent demand for an office? And how do we better coordinate teams so the office is always getting used? It’s time for the office to shift from a hobby to an actual business… Agree?

It's a bright, sunny 🌞 day in London so the city is busy and everyone will stream out of their offices to go for a drink after work with colleagues and friends........ That's what I thought would be the case, so I thought I'd look 🔬 into the data! 💽 I wanted to compare one of the typically busiest days of the week [Thursday] across the last two quarters to see if the seasons affected how occupied the workplace is. What I found was interesting. Looking into the last 2 years [2022 & 2023] I found that there was actually a decrease in occupancy between from Q1 into Q2. While 2022 only had a small decrease, 36.1% down to 35.1%, 2023 had a much bigger difference. There was a difference of over 10% with occupancy going from 43.4% in Q1 down to 32.7% in Q2. It's good to see that occupancy increased at the start of the year, suggesting space was being used more efficiently. However, I wonder if people are more inclined to work remotely so they can be at home rather than closer to their colleagues. Does this then lead to the question, does office culture affect why and when people choose to come to the office? I'd like to think my colleagues would want to grab an ice-cream 🍧 with me after work.... Let me just go and ask them 📢 #TheDataDude #workplaceanalysis #agileworking

If anyone has a better view from their office window, please share it! But that isn't the reason why rent here, the answer is very simple - WE WORK HARDER. We use Regus in Stockton-on-Tees and the office is lovely. The staff (Emma Caswell ) look after us beautifully and the price is very reasonable. Moreover we can use the business lounge in any Regus office worldwide for free – with a guest as well, which is a “Brucy Bonus” (for those who remember the Generation Game). Why do don’t we just work virtually? - Because it gets us out of the house and provides a valuable separation between work and home. Also not everyone is lucky enough to have enough space at home to work productively. - Because it is nice to meet face-to-face. It allows for lots of informal interactions and unplanned meeting which don’t warrant scheduling a proper call. - Explaining things face-to-face is also often much easier. Most of us don’t type as fast as we think! - Finally in group discussions, it is much easier to “read the mood in the room”, if you are physically in a room. But it also stops staff (INCLUDING ME!) from playing online games, watching day-time TV, doing the washing and managing their day-to-life. So for all the reasons above, we think office working has considerable merit. But we do prefer a mix: sometimes in the office and sometimes at home and then good habits remain good habits. #servicedoffices #WFH #aedonaccounting #hr

London lags behind other major global cities when it comes to working in the office. See Graphics in two COMMENT BOXES below showing actual vs. mandated presence requirements and why employees prefer WFH. While Rob Johnson and Oscar Selby, authors of the CentreforCities who did the research, argue that London's failure to RTO/RTP (return to the past) as other cities did threatens it being labeled a productivity failure and less attractive as an investment opportunity. The reality is that survey measures of productivity are totally biased vs. more scientific research coming out of Stanford University and Nick Bloom where there have been little differences in productivity compared to RTO/RTP levels. London may have more difficulty filling its legacy office space than other cities because Londoners are more progressive in the new ways of distributed work. But that is a good thing for businesses and employees, perhaps not for bureaucrats. See graphs below in the COMMENT BOXES.

Are you still working from home? 🤔 If so, consider yourself lucky. We are seeing a comeback in this sector! For a good amount of time, the office sector was on a downturn due to the effects of the pandemic and employees working from home. ➡️ Many office buildings sat empty. But, this seems to be shifting. On LinkedIn alone, from early 2022 to now, job postings that were remote dropped from over 20% to just 9%. 👉 That is a big drop! Now, yes, we are seeing a comeback in the office sector. However, a report from the building security company Kastle Systems revealed that the average office occupancy is still stuck around 50%. And it has been hovering at that level for the past year. Some professionals are saying that we could see this change at the end of this year to around 55-65%. This number is expected to continue to increase as more companies bring their employees back into the office to work in person. So how can your profit from the office sector come back? The pandemic-induced imbalance in office supply and demand is set to correct, potentially driving up office rents and making it an opportune time to invest in REITS such as Highwoods Properties. This REIT is a young and modern office REIT with high-yield assets concentrated in growing Sunbelt cities. Currently trading at a significant discount with a high yield, Highwoods presents a strategic investment as America reassesses its office space requirements. We will continue to keep an eye on this sector and see where it goes in 2024! #future #investing #business #success #motivation