After the corona: Your office work will never turn the same again

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in February-March, the concept of remote work has assumed new dimensions that will inevitably redefine office work and the global office workplace forever.

From one week to the next, the home office became its definitive breakthrough, which for many years, was most difficult to achieve among many skeptical employers.

Today, most employers acknowledge that office as a permanent physical workstation has lost status to the digital space, which enables employees to perform just as effectively outside the company walls. 

10 år years forward

"The technology has proved its worth. We have been pushed almost ten years into the future. I am impressed with how efficient and productive our employees are working from home. The technology allows me to measure the efficiency of the employees easily.

Once you have arranged a decent home workstation and set up an excellent discipline and structure, I've got to scream: Oh man, my employees are working most efficiently at home!" a Danish employer Jacob Riisgaard, owner of Coolshop.dk, states.

From one week to the next, the home office did achieve a substantial breakthrough also among usually skeptical employers.                                                    Photos: iStock

The corona crisis, he adds, has made him realize that the best employee is not necessarily the one who works in the office every five days a week. In the future, he´ll intend to hire employees who also live further away from his head office.

"It's more important to have the right employee, who might just come around the office two or three times a month. That means I´ll be able to recruit a lot wider and still get the right talents," Jacob Risgaard emphasizes.

Trust-based management

Before the corona pandemic, less than every ten Danes worked from home. A 2018 EU survey showed that 7.8% of Danish employees worked primarily from their home office - the Dutch topped the list with 14.0% ahead of the Finns with 13.3.

When corona leaves the global job market, it will have changed the workday for thousands of office and knowledge workers who, during the crisis, have proven the benefits and values of being able to contest a job function away from their company.

Therefore, several office managements are rethinking their workplaces for the time after the corona. Trust-based management will become an updated keyword because, during the crisis, employees did fulfill their efficiency and productivity at their home desks.

"It is more important to have the right employee who may come around the office two or three times a month," a Danish employer Jacob Risgaard states.

Also, the global office rental markets are in the busy process of figuring out how the future increased homework, in the short and long term as well, could affect the declining needs of office spaces and office square meters.

If a company housing 20 office workers lets a quarter of them work from home, the firm could spare office space of typically five times 11-15 sqm = min. 55-75 sqm. That could trigger significant downscaling, causing thousands of office relocations in rental markets around the world.

Coworking in crisis

In most cities, coworking environments are currently fighting for survival. Not only has the corona forced thousands of coworking spaces to shut down due to social distance restrictions. Moreover, many of their tenants increasingly found themselves forced to terminate their short-term rental contracts, as their customers and revenues also remain frozen.

Real estate brokers fear that a massive number of global coworking environments could end up forever, as the consequences of the corona pandemic will extend well into 2021, retaining thousands of coworkers by their PCs at home.

"It´s ironical that precisely the characteristics and values that generated the shared office model of coworking - flexible, short-term leases and relaxed working environments - could be the ones that lead to the collapse and downfall of many coworking spaces ..."  ●
 

Read more:
Forbes.com: The Impact Of The Coronavirus On The New Normal Of Work
Newgeography.com: The future of office space real estate market
Marketplace.org: Will COVID-19 be the death of coworking spaces?
Andcards.com/blog/experts: How to Run a Business after COVID-19