The Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown has led to the vast majority of office workers working from home since the end of March. At the time of writing, the UK Government has just announced it will be dropping its “work at home if you can” guidance to something that reflects Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s frequent encouragement to “get Britain back to work”. This is therefore a good time to reflect on the pros and cons of home working and to what extent the recent dramatic changes we have seen in working practices may become permanent.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently grabbed the headlines with his prediction that up to half of Facebook’s 45,000-strong workforce could be permanently working from home in the next five to ten years

Whilst we might expect the likes of Facebook and Zuckerberg to be ahead of the curve when it comes to innovation, there will be many less well-known businesses outside of the world of technology that have discovered, perhaps unexpectedly, the business benefits of having staff work at home during lockdown and who will be wondering to what extent these can be embedded as the economy returns to normal. The benefits of home working for businesses are usually cited as employees who are able to have a better work/life balance being happier and more productive and the ability of companies to access a broader and more diverse pool of talent. There will be many managers and business owners who have been pleasantly surprised by how productive their remote work force has been, reflecting a longstanding view that people working from home are not really working. Furthermore, there are many workplaces in which being present in the office, often for very long hours, is an essential prerequisite for career advancement. The widespread adoption and acceptance of video meeting technology such as Skype, Zoom and Microsoft Teams has meant that fears on the part of employees that by working at home they are “out of sight and out of mind” need no longer apply.

However, at the end of the day what may have more sway with company Finance Directors than these “human” considerations are the very real cost savings that can potentially be achieved by moving all or part of the workforce to home working – for either all or part of the week – on a permanent basis. In addition to allowing for social distancing considerations as part of the “new normal”, many businesses may find that having just 20% of the workforce in the office on each day of the week will allow them to significantly reduce their office space requirements whilst allowing for the resumption of some of the social contact that many workers value as part of office life as well as those meetings that, for whatever reason, do not lend themselves to being held online.

There is also evidence that whilst some workers are enjoying the remote working experience. For those with a dedicated home office space and a garden in which to work or enjoy breaks, it has been an overwhelmingly positive experience; others, whose working environment is far from ideal or who crave the social interactions of office life are increasingly desperate to return to business as usual.

In addition to the benefits, or otherwise, to individuals and employers, there are a number of societal benefits that accrue from a long-term shift towards remote working. On a global level, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the lower number of vehicle movements due to there being fewer commuters are potentially significant as, on a more local level, are the associated reductions in road congestion and improvements in air quality. In the short term, these have been offset to some extent by an increase in the number of people choosing to commute by car rather than public transport due to concerns over social distancing and the risk of infection. Government investment in schemes to encourage walking and cycling will further reinforce these positive changes as well as leading to improvements in public health including  reduction in obesity levels as people become more active.

At the end of the day, it is likely that the future will herald a middle way between the extremes of business as usual and the lockdown situation of 100% home working. Just as there are both advantages and disadvantages for employees to working at home, there are good reasons why businesses might prefer to have staff in the office for at least some of the time.

Of course, business often extends beyond the doors of the office to include meetings in locations at a distance from HQ. Whilst there have been many benefits to having all meetings take place on Zoom, etc – savings on travel time and cost, venue hire and catering, as well as the wider benefits concerning emissions, congestion and air quality – there will always be some meetings that are just better done face-to-face. Similar considerations apply to conferences and training courses – whilst holding these online brings all the benefits noted above as well as the ability for conference delegates to attend only those sessions that really interest them and be in the (virtual) office the rest of the time, as opposed to the hotel bar, it is hard to replicate those chance meetings and conversations that take place outside the main auditorium or training room over lunch, in the coffee queue or waiting for the lift where contacts are made and business cards exchanged.

Looking to the future, it is likely that a new paradigm of office work will emerge with more employees being based at home for part of the week but travelling to the office on a regular basis. The Government is actively working to address one barrier to this, which is to make season tickets for public transport more flexible in order to accommodate this new way of working. Although the Government has announced that it hopes to end social distancing by Christmas, it is likely that employers will want to factor the possibility of renewed restrictions being imposed in the future into their workspace planning.

The impact that Coronavirus has had on the national psyche means that the office workforce as a whole has a unique opportunity to renegotiate the contract with employers regarding expectations about how and where office work will be performed. The prize for getting this renegotiation right is an extensive package of benefits for employees, businesses and wider society. As has been said on so many occasions during this crisis: there cannot be a return to business as usual but a transition to a new normal.