As I have been making my slow return back to the office, what has been most noticeable has been the steady increase of workers trickling onto London’s transport system again. This, coupled with Boris Johnson’s suggestion he will end advice to work from home on 21 June, points to a large-scale return to the office.
Many of us have been working from home for over a year now. What was meant to be a temporary solution to what was at the time an unpredictable threat has turned into a way of life that looks set to continue way beyond Covid’s lifespan.
But what this pandemic left behind is scarcely populated buildings with hefty rents and empty desks that some companies will inevitably want filling — and fast.
Bosses and business experts have claimed that young people are the group that not only wants, but needs to be in the office. Goldman Sachs executive David Solomon said earlier this year that he doesn’t want “another class of young people arriving [remotely] that aren’t getting more direct contact, direct apprenticeship, direct mentorship.”
Dan Schawbel, managing partner of the HR advisory firm Workplace Intelligence, raised his concerns in a BBC article about young people shifting entirely to remote working. “I think their soft skills are in danger,” he said. “Part of soft skills from a business perspective is the art of collaborating and connecting…their soft skills are weakened because they’re not getting human contact.”
Various work and employment surveys suggest many young workers agree. A survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development suggested that those in their 20s and 30s were the age group most looking forward to returning to the workplace.