A growing number of business have been shifting to a primarily online presence, particularly over the past eighteen months with the huge shift seen for remote working as a primary option for employees too – many business now particularly in gaming for example don’t even require on office space in order to succeed and may lead many others to follow, but is this something likely to see change once things get back to the ‘new normal’?
For small businesses in particular, they may be the least likely to see a change back to something more traditional – not only will it become more difficult to fill the office once again if the majority of employees are working from home, but large cost savings can also be found by not paying any rent or lease fee on top of having less requirement for office hardware like desks and dedicated systems for the work team too. Especially after a difficult couple of years, this could also be essential for ensuring that a full team can be retained and no cost cutting measures are needed as plenty of savings can be found from just the office space alone.
For bigger businesses, things may be a little different – it’ll still largely very much be the expectation that some office space remains accessible for any team members that would like the opportunity to go to the office, and there will be certainly restrictions for ensuring that there’s adequate working space to cover even those that wouldn’t make the journey too. There are also many that are requiring employees to return to the office too which takes the choice away.
The office space requirement problem isn’t entirely a new thing either as the big shift towards all things digital over the past decade have brought the question up and the question of remote working many times before so there may already be a huge number of businesses that have made adequate arrangements for this very scenario, but just as many who have also heavily invested which may make it harder to let go of a space that they’ve put so much into.
Ultimately only time will tell, things are still on the fringe of getting back to what could be considered normal so there are still likely plenty of changes yet to come and last-minute adjustments to either fit in with the changing guidelines or to fit in with the needs of the employee, but it certainly does look to be leaning more toward office space as a requirement is slowly being phased out in favour of personal space being your new working office.