The future of the workplace looks like being a combination of work-at-home with work-in-the-office.
This form of hybrid working is already the new normal and preferred by two-thirds of employees surveyed recently, who expect to be able to work from different locations when the pandemic recedes.
Up to 50% of employees want the option of working either at the office or remotely, whilst a quarter would prefer to remain in the office full-time.
As a result, days allocated to remote work are expected to double from 1.2 days per week pre-pandemic to 2.4 days per week post-pandemic.
Remote working will mostly happen from home, with 72% of employees wanting to continue working from home for an average of two days a week. Around 43% want access to work in a coworking facility. A growing percentage of employees—from 30% pre-pandemic to 40% post-pandemic—want to work in alternative locations at least some of the time – such as serviced shared offices etc.
As a result, current staff restaurants, in-house coffee bars and Grab & Go facilities etc will all find their normal footfalls heavily reduced, many to levels that fall below any commercial viability for manned catering. In light of this, remote serviced vending machines, micro markets and bean to cup real milk office coffee machines used on a self service basis, will be the best way to provide future staff refreshment and to encourage home workers to come back into the office for important meetings, quality workspace and social interaction.
Our thanks to Dr Sanjay Rishi and CEO World for much of the content in this piece
