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FT editor Roula Khalaf selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Change may be everywhere, but there is one aspect of modern life that is finally showing signs of stability: the office.
Urban buildings around the world remain much emptier than before Covid hit, but as pandemic lockdowns become increasingly a thing of the past, office use rates have been increasing until reaching more stable levels.
Average office The UK occupancy rate has remained consistently around 33 per cent in the 12 months to May, a estimateabout half of pre-pandemic levels.
In the US, average work-from-home rates are also much higher than before Covid, but have still remained fairly stable since mid-2022. Researchers say who have been following the radical changes in working patterns brought about by the pandemic.
A milestone that went largely unnoticed was reached in May: a key measure – the share of full paid days worked from home – fell to 26.6%, the lowest level since the early stages of the pandemic. By June, it was back to 28.6%, just a few points below the 31.6% in June 2022.
In other words, remote and hybrid working patterns have proven to be far more resilient than many employers predicted (or hoped), and while it is too early to say where working-from-home levels will ultimately plateau, a plateau may be in sight.
Personally, I really like the move towards more flexible working, so it is disheartening to see that the move may not be right for everyone.
This year, Gallup The researchers said Employee engagement in the United States had fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade, meaning workers felt more distant, less satisfied and less connected to their companies.
This is worrying, as engagement is linked to productivity, customer service, safety and profitability.
The cause of this decline is not entirely clear, but it was most pronounced among younger workers – those who work exclusively from home and, very interestingly, those who could do their jobs remotely but instead work entirely on-site.
What are the odds that workers in that last group had to go into the office five days a week, as some employees have done at large American companies including Boeing, UPS, and JPMorgan?
I suspect the likelihood is high, given data from companies such as Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial property consultancy. found Last year, return-to-office mandates may have increased office attendance by up to 14 percentage points, but reduced employee engagement scores by 26 points.
This seems like a poor compromise to me. Fortunately, some companies are more than capable of creating hybrid structures that work for all staff, including younger employees who need in-person help to find their way around.
And there are signs that an even more significant shift may be underway. As company leaders recognise the power of hybrid work to attract or retain senior staff, some are also rethinking the way they design or build office space.
Real estate executives are starting to be asked to focus on more than just short-term cost savings, says Cushman & Wakefield’s Despina Katsikakis. Instead of reporting to the CFO, she says they are starting to work with “people and culture,” or HR divisions, to create offices where people actively prefer to work.
Real estate services group CBRE tells me that 24 percent of real estate executives reported directly to HR leaders in 2022, up 14 percentage points from the previous year, and the share likely rose further in 2023.
In the UK, Barclays’ corporate real estate team has long worked in the same division as the HR and finance groups. The bank recently opened a much admired Glasgow campus building, where attention to staff needs is so granular that it features “low-noise hand dryers” and paper towels for noise-sensitive people, and “quieter” rooms with plain backgrounds for neurodiverse workers. Not to mention a range of technologies and “creative spaces” to facilitate hybrid working.
Of course, not every employer can afford an office like this, but not everyone needs to. Offering flexible working hours in a decent location that makes it easy to do the job you’re paid to do is a basic recipe for success in a world where it seems highly unlikely we’ll ever go back to working as we did before 2020.