March 30, 2021
New normal looking more and more like old normal, say facilities managers
Workers across the UK could return to offices faster than anticipated, according to a new RICS survey of facilities managers. According to the poll, a growing number of respondents say that up to 80 percent of employees will head back once the pandemic is resolved. This is up from less than 60 percent expected in the same poll from the previous quarter ending November 2020. As evidence suggests the UK vaccination programme is taking hold across the country, results to the RICS UK Facilities Management Survey show more respondents starting to believe employees could return to the office in greater numbers than many initially expected in the previous quarter. More →
A new report from KPMG suggests that half of major corporations do not expect to see a return to any sort of ‘normality’ until 2022 when half of the general population has been vaccinated. The report also claims that there has been a steep decline in the appetite of the global executives who took part in the survey for office downsizing as the firms reconsider the need for in-person business to resume when countries emerge from the pandemic. 
A new report from think tank Demos and Legal & General calls on the UK Government to back policy change that supports growth of hybrid working and local offices to drive forward its plans for regeneration and economic growth. The report, 
A new BCO research paper, 
The much discussed idea of Zoom fatigue turns out to be a real phenomenon according to new peer reviewed research from Stanford academics. The study published in the American Psychological Association’s journal 
Almost two million workers were unemployed or fully furloughed in January – and had been for at least six months – highlighting the scale of lasting damage to the UK’s labour force that will need to be addressed in the Budget, according to major new research published today by the Resolution Foundation. 
Research from the 
Generating £27.8 billion gross value added annually, and employing more than 360,000 people, the West Midlands is the UK’s largest centre for business, professional and financial services (BPFS) outside London. Now, business leaders from Shoosmiths, Wesleyan, Bruntwood CBRE amongst others, are working with the region’s just under 12,500 leading tech and digital companies to see how they can integrate AI and advanced technology into their everyday activities. 
Take-up of office space in the cities outside of Central London during Q4 2020 totalled 1.1m sq ft, an increase of 138 percent compared to Q3 2020. However, the overall take-up for 2020 reached 3.9m sq ft, a decline of 40 percent on the five-year average, according to research from real estate advisor 
Amazon has submitted plans for its new $2.5 billion headquarters campus, known as HQ2, in Arlington County. Virginia. The NBBJ designed proposal for the PenPlace campus includes a 350 ft glass tower, three 22-story towers offering 2.8 million sq. ft of office space, a 250-seat outdoor amphitheatre, public green space, and several other buildings. The centre piece tower, officially dubbed The Helix, is a plant covered structure to emphasize the firm’s commitment to the environment and biophilic design. 
The EU Parliament has 
