Spending five days in the office each week ‘could return in two years’
Spending five days per week in the office could again become the norm within two years, think tank Centre for Cities has said.
Hybrid working – spending some time working at home or elsewhere and some in the office – has become a popular compromise among companies planning working patterns post-pandemic, including in many offices in the City.
But that change could be short-lived, with the think tank telling the BBC pre-Covid working patterns could be back within two years.
“I expect we will see three of four days a week in the office as the UK recovers,” Paul Swinney, director of policy and research at Centre for Cities said on Radio 5 Live’s Wake Up to Money programme.
“Over the longer term I’m quite hopeful that we will see people return five days a week.
“The reason for that is, one of the benefits of being in the office is having interactions with other people, coming up with new ideas and sharing information.”
Swinney said scheduling a meeting was not the answer to this, and that it had to happen randomly.
“If you’re in the office on a Monday but someone else is in the office on a Wednesday, then you’re starting to miss out. Or if your colleague is in the office and having a meeting with your boss and you’re not there, all of a sudden that changes the dynamic again.” he added.