Legal & General, with cross-party think tank Demos, has called on government to incentivise the establishment of more local offices around the UK and hybrid-working initiatives.
The pair have made the plea after discovering that some 65% of the UK’s working population were forced to change their place of work during 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Of these, 79% want to continue to have some form of remote working in future.
However, the findings – taken from a poll of 20,000 adults – also show that the desire to work remotely is not necessarily the same as wanting to work from home all of the time.
Relatively high levels of support were recorded for “local desk space”. This was particularly stark among younger people, with one-fifth of those in their twenties rating it their top priority for employment premises in their locality.
When asked how people were intending to spend their money once the restrictions were over, the research found that 36% of people plan to spend more money locally than they did before the pandemic. Among people required to work from home, this rose to 47%.
The results of L&G and Demos’s Post Pandemic Places report echo those of EG’s Shifting Working Patterns analysis, published last year.
L&G suggests there is an opportunity for government and business to support more hybrid working and flexible local desk space, to give people the flexibility they want and also make progress on the “levelling up” agenda, by spreading spending power across a wider geographical area.
“Covid-19 has driven major change to people’s lives and global economies. Our ideas around what we need from our homes, workplace and communities have been challenged,” said L&G chief executive Nigel Wilson. “One-quarter of our workforce were already ‘agile’ before Covid-19, and the trend towards flexibility has accelerated. Remote working remains popular with some and is driving a desire to spend more time and money locally. But people also miss the buzz and collaboration opportunities of the office, which support their personal wellbeing and development, and ability to drive ideas and innovation.
“We now need to be creative in how we think about the future of the workplace. Not all homes are conducive to a good working environment, and not everyone is able to work from home. As we ready ourselves for the post-pandemic world, bringing forward more flexible office and innovation spaces, in locations near to people’s homes, could be an important hybrid solution, complementing the return to the office.”
He added: “Government and business now need to work together to incentivise the creation of the next evolution of workspace that drives up productivity, while helping to push spending power out across the country, driving forward regeneration and levelling up.”
Demos is calling on government to promote remote working as a regeneration tool, utilising its own civic estate as hubs for public sector workers across the UK to work flexibly and providing tax incentives to employees to work remotely and help spread wealth across the country.
“This major shift to remote and flexible working has led to a desire for spending more cash and more time locally,” said Demos chief economic adviser Kitty Ussher. “Flexible working has the opportunity to make local areas thrive beyond expectations. This presents an opportunity for government to actively support hybrid working, not just because it’s what people want and because of its long-understood potential to narrow the gender pay gap, but also as a key tool for local regeneration.”
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