Coronavirus: What's the future for the office?

Nevertheless, after the lockout, almost half of the UK 's workforce say they've been operating from home-and several businesses have indicated that could be the future.

"It could be a thing of the past to place 7,000 employees in a house," Barclays' boss said, while Morgan Stanley's chief said the bank should have "far less real estate." Instead of spending the £35 m he spends on lavish offices in men, businessman Sir Martin Sorrell has said.

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Bruce Daisley, who is author of The Joy of Work, says the game is up for the workplace as we know it.

"We may get misty-eyed about it, sadly, but I think the office in the way it used to be is probably a thing of the past now," he told the Today program of BBC Radio 4. "I was talking last week with someone who works at a major media company and he said that we used to have 1,400 people come into this office every day. We've had 30 employees for the last eight weeks and the product hasn't changed.

"Whoever thinks things should go back to the way things were, he said, are nuts."

Yet it's not easy to announce the end of the workplace, says Prof. André Spicer of City University's Cass Business School. He expects a "extreme decrease" in the amount of time people spend in the workplace-but he says office work won't be done for good. One explanation, he suggests, is that homeworkers tend not to get promoted as easily-" They tend to get ignored.

And people would want to be noticeable, with a recession on the way.
"In times of economic recession particularly, people will start thinking: I want to be in the office, the boss wants to see me," he says.

Prof. Spicer also indicates that workplaces should continue as hubs where senior managers are located, with workers traveling to see their bosses once or twice a week. This seems to be close to Twitter 's strategy, allowing employees to work from home indefinitely-while keeping workplaces open when people want to come in.

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Home-working is not new-it has been on the rise in recent decades-and by hiring co-working space, many businesses have already tried to save money on rent.

"I think cost is a big driver," says Prof. Spicer. "I think a lot of businesses are going to say we 're spending all that money on rent so let's move on to more homework. What was always going on.

Why are they going to influence us?

Most of us have already learned some of the advantages and challenges of working from home. Some are obvious-no commute; less chances to socialize with friends, while others go to the heart of our identity.

"I think we would all hurl at what we lose," says Lucy Kellaway, who wrote both fictional and non-fiction books about workplaces. "I think the most important thing about the workplace is that it brings some sense to what we do. Much of what we do at our computers-let 's face it-doesn't make much sense.

"The easiest way to think about it is to have other people sitting around you doing the same thing." He says workplaces are keeping us calm and giving us routine.

"And we can be a different person once we are there," she told Today. "I don't know about you, but I'm totally sick and tired of being the same person all day long as I slouch around at home. I want to wear different clothes, go to the office, see different people who are becoming my lifelong friends and laugh when I'm there."

Thank you.