6 Things UK Businesses Want From a Post-Covid Office

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With the Government set to ramp-up its return-to-workplace campaign, businesses across the UK are likely to begin (or even continue) their shift away from an exclusive WFH-week.

After our stint of lockdown-induced WFH, the office is unlikely to function the way it did before.

It will become a space dedicated to celebrating the human side of business – innovation, training and development, collaboration, empathy, humour and creativity. And as a result, when businesses search for their next office space, they’ll have a new set of demands.

Knight Frank’s Re-occupancy and Re-imagined Workplace Survey uncovers the extent to which businesses are reassessing their office space needs and how they think the workplace can be re-imagined.

With 81% of UK businesses agreeing they need to implement a new workplace strategy, what will change?

As the world of work evolves, how can you stay competitive?

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Here’s what UK businesses want from their offices now

Among the UK businesses surveyed by Knight Frank, 53% said they wanted their offices to have a greater amount of collaboration space.

An emphasis on collaboration

Trying to squeeze effective collaboration in between intermittent requests to “mute your microphone” wasn’t the most productive experience.

Right before Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave businesses the discretion to return to their offices, collaboration was listed as the number one reason for wanting to return, and in a survey carried by out by the Evening Standard, 80% of respondents said they “missed interacting with colleagues”.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that among the UK businesses surveyed by Knight Frank, 53% said they wanted their offices to have a greater amount of collaboration space.

Whilst it’s unlikely that employees will be back in the office together at the same time for some months, it’s important that businesses reinvigorate both their physical and virtual spaces by ensuring that they promote collaborative working to the fullest extent.

Unsurprisingly, 93% of businesses plan to include more effective use of collaboration platforms such as Teams and Skype.

47% of UK businesses said they envisioned their real estate strategies to include a greater amount of flexible, serviced or coworking space.

More flexible office space

In times of uncertainty, flexibility is key. In fact, 47% of UK businesses said they envisioned their real estate strategies to include a greater amount of flexible, serviced or coworking space.

As the UK emerged from lockdown, we forecasted this demand for flexible office space. Global uncertainty amplified the appeal of being able to move straight into a fully functioning office, the agility to shrink and grow your space depending on your headcount, budget accordingly with an all-inclusive cost and stay flexible with a monthly rolling contract.

In fact, Covid-19 accelerated trends that were already apparent in the market. We started to see an uptick in the demand for flexible office space before lockdown – and not just from startups and high growth businesses. Even larger, more established businesses started to operate a ‘core and flex’ approach to real estate, with the flex element being catered for by serviced and coworking providers.

While businesses find the right balance and blend of office space – which will take time – flexible office solutions will be increasingly attractive, enabling organisations to adjust their requirements as their strategy evolves.

63% of businesses said they anticipate a greater focus on the design and specification of their offices.

A focus on design, specification and quality

When it comes to the workplace of the future, 36% of UK businesses said they believe a better quality of space will play an important role, same too for the design and specification of their offices, with 63% of UK businesses anticipating a greater focus on the latter.

As the role of the office changes, employees will be investing in their commute in order to catch up face to face with colleagues and clients, enjoy some essential socialising and seamlessly bounce ideas off one another in a well-designed space that inspires them. Businesses that recognise the strategic value of the right office space and amenities won’t just want basic desk space.

An office space that facilitates variety and agile working, for example, after the monotony of exclusively working from home is likely to be at the top of employers' wish lists.

74% of UK businesses said they now have a greater focus on wellbeing in the workplace.

The rise of wellbeing

When asked about the wider non-economic impacts of Covid-19, 74% of UK businesses said they now have a greater focus on wellbeing in the workplace.

For many of us, lockdown inspired a newfound work-life balance that our commute used to inhibit. A return to the office might mean waving goodbye to a morning yoga routine or an early evening run.

In fact, a Bupa Health Clinics survey of 2,000 employees which assessed the UK’s return-to-the-office sentiment found that 27% of employees were nervous about the possibility of losing their newfound work-life balance by returning to the office.

And yet on the flip side, there were reports of WFH-burnout during lockdown, with employees nostalgic for having a physical barrier between their home lives and their office lives.

A corporate focus on wellbeing – which was growing before Covid-19 – is likely to be a response to both sides of this coin, with businesses hoping to integrate it more intentionally and cohesively into the modern world of work.

74% of UK businesses surveyed by Knight Frank said they would be placing a greater focus on health and safety in the workplace.

Health and safety first

Amid the current pandemic, it’s no surprise that 74% of UK businesses surveyed by Knight Frank said they would be placing a greater focus on health and safety in the workplace – especially considering office cleanliness was listed as a top concern for employees returning to the office by a Bupa Health Clinics study.

Naturally, this sentiment is likely to have influenced the steps of caution businesses took in welcoming their employees back. While 93% of UK businesses surveyed by Knight Frank followed government regulations, checks and safeguards, 75% of UK businesses implemented their own procedures and controls beyond government guidance.

Other steps included deep cleaning the office (89%), staff rotations (61%), changing air conditioning filters (39%) and temperature checks or thermal screening (27%).

Meanwhile, 61% of businesses surveyed envision a greater use of technology in the workplace such as scanning, sensors, building apps and facial recognition to understand activity, wellbeing and health and safety.

47% of UK businesses surveyed by Knight Frank are considering how their employees could work closer to home.

Working closer to home

Working from home, at least some of the time, has become commonplace for many and proved effective for certain tasks, but it’s widely accepted that offices still play a primary function in our work lives.

There is a growing need for businesses to provide space for their employees to share ideas, collaborate and learn together. The quantum of space, and mix of spaces required by businesses – core, flex, and home – is not a ‘one size fits all’ model.

Businesses might choose to embrace a new level of flexible working, with employees free to choose their hours, stagger start times to avoid rush hour, work from home or even work closer to home.

In fact, 47% of UK businesses surveyed by Knight Frank are considering how their employees could work closer to home, while 21% of businesses said they will look at operating offices closer to where people live.