The future of work
Employers are grappling with decisions about the future of work and workplaces. On the one hand, some employers are calling for workforces to return to physical spaces, to foster collaboration and productivity. On the other hand, many employees are reluctant to return to pre-pandemic work patterns, having enjoyed the benefits of less commuting and improved work-life balance.
This ongoing tension and the resulting absence of a traditional 9-5 influx of workers to the Central Business Districts (CBDs) has left office assets underutilised. What were once bustling city centres are now uncharacteristically quiet. In London, footfall in some high streets is still less than 80 percent of pre-Covid figures. In the United States, 2022 mid-August office occupancy rates in ten of the largest cities were roughly 44% of what they were compared to pre-pandemic levels back in 2020 due to the rise of remote work.
With so much behaviour change occurring in such a short space of time, and with the financial and organisational costs mounting, how can leaders respond to and plan for an uncertain future of work?
Reimagining our relationship with the CBD
When asking employees to return to the workplace, often the question is: what value is there to be gained from working in an office versus working from home? On the surface, the answer to this would seem weighted towards the home environment, which offers improved privacy and flexibility, in comparison to many modern open-plan offices. A better question to ask, then, is how can we provide meaningful and desirable experiences in the workplace that employees simply can’t get at home?
The unique appeal of the CBD as a drawcard to workers may provide the answer. The CBD represents an ecosystem of experiences, from the intimate and fine-grain, to large-scale and civic-minded. Thinking of the office not just as a workspace but as a microcosm of a broader CBD community, and of the city centre as an aggregator of unique experiences, may shift the mindset of employees reluctant to return to the office.
The CBDs of the future will emphasise culture, sports, music and arts events as key attractors that cannot be replicated, at the same scale, in the suburbs (and certainly not at home).
By better connecting workers to the unique experiences offered by the city, employers can offer creative incentives, working with cultural institutions to curate and ‘package’ experiences with an employee’s visit to the office. For example, employers could arrange for a day in the office to be topped off with an evening at an art gallery, a comedy show or a sporting event.