Is London dead? Office rent, transport, and remote work.
“I worry that my biggest business mistake was signing a five-year lease in central London at the end of last year”, says a depressed-sounding CEO.
Unfortunately, Simon Craven, transport specialist and former board adviser to BT, Arriva, and Go Ahead thinks he might be right.
Simon Craven
Transport Specialist
“The problem is far more complex than getting office workers to a desk—it's also about the army of cooks, cleaners, and hospitality services whose support underpins much of that office work.
London's scale as a business hub was built on huge flows of daily and weekly commuters. With transport capacity severely reduced by distancing, normal timetables can't move the necessary numbers. Meanwhile, limits on road and parking space mean cars can never replace the million-plus daily arrivals and departures that rail normally provides into London each day.
Walking and cycling help, but only for a local minority.”
While businesses based outside of London, with parking spaces and perhaps more room per person, may be able to return to offices more quickly and ship in the support teams they need. Equally those living outside of London may have access to more space at home than those crammed into small flats with little storage and no outside space. Is this the moment when London dissipates its power, just as the government hoped, albeit through a pandemic rather than the promised investment and infrastructure?
It could be. Twitter has already called it, announcing that it will allow its teams to continue remote working indefinitely. Many, many others are looking at impending decisions they don’t have enough information to make with confidence, including how long their business can stay afloat for and, if it does survive, where and how the team will work.
The variables at play are almost endless:
What kind of timescale are we looking at here?
How long can government support continue?
When should offices re-open?
How will office space and usage needs evolve?
Which roles cannot be remote long term?
Exactly how much Perspex does an office need to function?
Is sitting at desks back-to-back really better than working from your bedroom?
So, what comes next?
Scenario Planning
The number of questions reminded me to revisit Margaret Heffernan’s book presciently published at the end of last year: Uncharted: How to Map the Future Together. In the book, she explores the flaws in traditional forecasting, reminding me that in 2016 neither Trump nor Brexit appeared in any DAVOS risk reports (the following year they appeared in 9 and 18 respectively).
She reminds us of the methods that do help, including Scenario Planning. Illuminating two or three possible versions of the future allows you to explore the choices, risks, and opportunities of each. It doesn’t seek to tell your fortune, it does guide you through your values, beliefs and bigger goals, as well as how changes will impact different groups. But the important thing about it is that it includes representatives of everyone you work with, to ensure you have the most rounded picture possible. And that depends on good research.
Because, much as you might be enjoying a lockdown full of dog walking, rose pruning and inventive vegetable box recipes, not everyone feels the same way.
According to Karian and Box’s research of over 75,000 UK employees: 24% want to keep working remotely.
[Read the full report here]
But PwC data [ PDF] shows that 38% don’t want to work from home permanently and one in five (22%) Londoners never want to work from home again. The question is will they feel the same if the bars, coffee shops and restaurants aren’t open? Either because social distancing makes them unviable or because their teams can’t get there. And, if offices are operating at such low capacity that the usual buzz and banter is killed, will people bother to pay for the journey?
The good news for anyone looking beyond the city skyline, is that the estate agents have reopened… just in time for a weekend of country house property porn.
- Christine x
