PwC reported that half of UK firms plan to reduce their offices post-Covid. However, as author Marty Rubin once said, “no story tells the whole story”. Whilst some multinationals may be trimming their floor plates to support new-found hybrid working habits, many SMEs are in fact betting big on offices.

In recent weeks, hybrid working has been discussed at length by the media and business leaders alike. However, the hybrid model is not a flawless one, and there are still wrinkles that need to be ironed out...

In April, staff at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs started to return to their London offices, with many other businesses now also following suit. In fact, Estates Gazette’s Tim Burke recently reported that UK offices saw occupancy levels at almost 45% of the pre-pandemic norm in late April. The ‘great return’ is now well underway and, with our enquiries almost on par with 2019 levels, our customers, new and old, are chief amongst those refilling London’s streets. 

Looking for an office space in London? You’ve come to the right place.
We know it can be difficult finding an office space that is right for you. At The Argyll Club, we have over 35 locations to give your business the office space it needs in a safe, secure way. We’ve gone above and beyond to follow guidelines to help you get your teams back together in the safest way. 
Below, we answer some questions about office spaces to help you find the perfect office space for you and your business. 

In the words of Prof. Jeremy Bailenson, Founding Director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, ‘just because you can… doesn’t mean you have to’. He is of course referring to video conference calls and doing so in light of Stanford’s new Zoom Exhaustion & Fatigue (ZEF) Scale, which tracks the general as well as physical, social, emotional and motivational fatigue that comes with time spent in on-screen meetings...

With the first anniversary of lockdown just around the corner, now is a moment of reflection for us all. A great deal has changed in the workplace over the last year for the positive as well as negative, and numerous challenges still lie ahead.

The tide appears to be turning in terms of attitudes towards the office. Kevin Ellis, Senior Partner and Chairman of PwC, notes that after evidence of mixed sentiment last summer, the majority of CEOs are turning back to being pro-office, and David Solomon, Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs, goes as far as to say that working from home is ‘an aberration’ that requires ‘correcting’. While hybrid working is still the most likely scenario, leaders are getting serious about a return to the office this summer as vaccines continue to roll out and Government tempts commuters with the promise of flexible season rail tickets. There is, after all, no substitute for a stunning office building in a great location in terms of setting first impressions, welcoming customers, attracting talent and motivating employees.­

At The Argyll Club, we have over 30 flexible workspaces in London that can give your corporate business the temporary room it needs to bring your teams back together, safely. Finding a way to enable your teams to join together again, is critical as we move into this next chapter

There has been a palpable change in the national mood since Boris Johnson’s announcement this week that we may return to restriction-free life from 21st June. While this positive burst of optimism is welcome, it conceals the longer-term unknown impact that the pandemic has had on our wellbeing.

It comes as little surprise that mental health problems have worsened across all age groups in the past year, and the third lockdown has been particularly harmful thus far due to struggles with job security, home schooling, caring responsibilities, bereavement and lockdown fatigue all being prolonged. 

There is a famous quote by American author William Gibson, who said, ‘the future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed’. Never has that statement seemed more true than over the past year. We’ve seen an acceleration in the adoption of technology as consumers and businesses struggle to come to terms with virtual living and working, an effort described in one report by KPMG and Harvey Nash as a ‘huge and unprecedented spike in technology spending’.

In the workplace the initial challenge we have had to solve is one of virtual-to-virtual (V2V) communication, so that we may work together seamlessly while dispersed across the country.