May 20, 2021
The pandemic will transform the way we commute
Organisations and businesses have a lot to contend with as they begin to reopen their offices. From social distancing, working from home policies, office layouts, hand gel stations and more. But there also remains one key issue when it comes to welcoming employees back to the office. And that’s how they will get to work in the first place. That’s because the daily commute is going to look a lot different than it did pre-COVID. Firstly, while many employers and workers see the benefit of meeting in person, the hybrid world we now live in will see workers commuting to the office far less frequently. And, if they do travel to the office, there is an element of hesitancy about how they will get there; a recent study revealed 60 percent that ‘post pandemic’ commuting say hybrid working has reduced stress from not having to commute daily. More →
As lockdown starts to lift, more people are having to think about going back to work as normal. That means commutes, offices, cafeterias, and face to face meetings. 
Research commissioned by 
A year of unnecessarily binary conversation about work leads inevitably to this. A stupid question. 
Employees could save over £2,200 a year and ‘get back’ 98 mins a day if companies adopted a ‘Work Near Home’ model for offices in the future, claims research from workspace company, 
As employees continue to be forced home during the pandemic, nearly half of them are reporting high levels of exhaustion. A new study by 
Originally published in December 2014. Homeworking seems to have become a bit of a hot topic this year, but one sentence published on the 
With the Government setting out its roadmap for the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, workers are set to return to offices later this year. However, new working practices mean they will still split their time between the office and home. 
New data from real estate consultancy 
Let’s be honest, work life pre 2020 had its flaws, whilst the longing for variety of scenery, change of pace and even a train journey (somewhere…ANYWHERE) would be welcomed by many of us right now, many of us had become a bit ‘hamster wheel’ in our approach. Commuting was stressful, expensive and time hungry; our natural and individual rhythms squeezed into a set 9-5 schedule and workplace design had become a bit ‘quantity over quality’ – desks have been reducing in size year upon year in order that capacity could be increased. We had reached a point at which everything was ripe for change but there was largely a resistance to both flexible working requests and embracing much of the technological advancements that were already at our fingertips. 
Lockdown meant that the choice to work from home was made for us. However, for many the decision to continue to do so post-lockdown will be a personal choice. The question we should all ask ourselves is, whether when we are outside of any lockdown restrictions, is working from home really a workplace revolution or simply an act of selfishness? For thousands of workers who’ve spent years of their lives commuting to offices that feel more like soul-less factories than inspiring and engaging workplaces, it’s no wonder that enforced work from home has proven popular. 
June 3, 2021
Engineered familiarity in the new era of work
by Robin Bayliss • Comment, Working lives, Workplace design