We have all heard the expression that ‘destiny can tap you on the shoulder’. Well, here at Hold Everything virtual office we are feeling that tap right now. If anything changes from our Corona Virus lockdown it will be the concept of what an office is and whether it needs to be an actual space we travel to every day often for several hours at a time. Rod Liddle, the leading Sunday Times columnist has a fine knack for sensing trends, listen to what he has to say.. ‘
What on earth is the point of the office any more?
They had a use once, these desolate areas of parched pot plants and plywood cubicles, patrolled by willy-waving middle managers forever calling fatuous meetings, often involving PowerPoint presentations, in order to ameliorate their own crushing insecurities — but, surely, no longer.
If, instead of the elderly, we could pin the notice “do not resuscitate” on the door of almost every office in the land, we would be an immediately better, happier and more profitable place for big business, employees and society in general. There is almost no downside. Abolish the office, everybody gains.
Liddle continues to make several important points:
Home-working (or co-working) employees are considerably more productive than those who work in the office.
An American workplace survey showed that the more workers were out of the office, the more innovative and successful the company.
A Swedish study suggested that people who commute more than 45 minutes a day each way were 40% more likely to divorce.
Liddle makes many other points in his diatribe against the traditional office environment, but he also makes a quite brilliant suggestion that the discarded office premises could be converted into dwellings to solve our burgeoning housing shortage. He sees apartments coming out from old office space as the riverside landscape was transformed by warehouses becoming loft apartments.
Philip Johnston writing in the Telegraph sees the trend but feels the transformation depends on a robust internet structure.
“Will home working prove to be a temporary expedient or will it usher in an entirely new way of working for millions, fulfilling the early promise offered by the internet? The arrival of 5G with its greater opportunities for streaming, video conferencing and the rest should make remote working much more feasible.”
I believe that we are well on the way to creating a sustainable digital structure that will allow companies to gradually abandon an expensive and utilised office space in a central location and move elegantly to distant working whilst keeping a traditional central business address with the facilities of a virtual office such as Hold Everything. Imagine, you have an address for receiving your business mail which can be speedily forwarded to you wherever you are in the world. This address will be on London’s most well known road, Regent Street for as little as £24.00 a month, no more than a 2 minute stroll to Oxford Circus and near Apple & Hamley’s, so that you have a legitimate, prestigious address. The mail can also be opened and ‘actioned’ on your instructions by a skilled, discreet secretarial team. Should you wish to actually meet a client at the office a luxurious boardroom awaits you at an hourly or daily rate.
Your central London landline rings, it is answered by a skilled receptionist and the call is either passed to you at your current location or a message is taken and transmitted on to you. For years many businesses have been wondering about the reality and practicality of working remotely and abandoning paradigms from the 1980’s. Now, at a stroke, Coronavirus has reset the business world. We know there can be no turning back. A central London virtual office is your solution and we are there to fulfil our destiny.
