The Working Environment – Will it Ever Be the Same Again?

In the current situation we find ourselves in, are we all developing a new way of working and will this still carry on when we all go back to work.

A business decision that Levells took back in 2008 was to do just that. When the recession hit and our clients marketing teams and spend started to decrease, we were faced with the same question, although slightly different in circumstance but very much the same in the way we are working now.

Our core team we kept in the centre of Birmingham. That way we could afford to have the premises we wanted. This allowed us to have the inspiration and materials around us, we needed to stay at the forefront of trends and at the same time made us work in a more agile way. Our designers could then work from home, which saved on travel time, to and from the office and worked well for those with young families.

What we found was that out team were more efficient, worked in a way that suited us, them and our clients and got better results. It allowed us to open up and work with some of our clients in North America and Asia, in the fact that we could almost be 24/7, as some of our designers would start work later in the day to allow for the time difference, so correspondence could be dealt with at an instant and keep our clients continually moving forward.

And this is still the case today. As a business we have been working this way for well over a decade and this has proved to be very successful.

So, does that mean as many businesses are being forced to have their employees work from home, now follow a similar trend? Business premises are expensive things, what with rent, utilities and commuting.

More people seem to being doing Skype, Zoom or similar meeting/group calls. Will this become the norm to make time more efficient? The workplace may well shrink in size with more employers and employees, opting to work from home, if it suits.

Will we go back to work, but without the complaining of our colleagues and the environment we are in, as it will be just a relief to get back to some sort of normality. Will the monolithic companies try to recreate the past, while the nimble and creatively frustrated among us present a more appealing alternative, both for clients and staff? Is this now the time to change and make the working environment and lifestyle/work balance a more efficient way of working?

Or will we, just as humans, have very short memories and do nothing and carry on as before?