Trying to compete with home-working setups is a difficult task, but if you focus on why people go to the office – namely for face-to-face meetings and team building – you’ll realise that you don’t need the best of the best to have a productive workplace that people attend regularly. Secondary offices are still required by many more budget-conscious companies and are still serving the secondary cities well.
The number of empty offices has been increasing since the pandemic. When you look more closely, however, you’ll notice that prime offices are faring a lot better than non-prime. In fact, even when offices were being abandoned at the height of the pandemic, prime offices were still being taken up more than being vacated.
To put it bluntly, lower quality offices have been seriously struggling to find tenants, whilst demand for good quality office space remains high.
Now that we have the option of working within jumping distance of our sofa and telly, offices have needed to up their game and provide enticements that you just can’t get from the desk in your spare room. As a result, businesses are prioritising high-quality work environments that promote employee well-being and productivity. This includes features like efficient layouts, abundant natural light, and access to amenities.
What does the latest research suggest?
Contrary to what the glossy refurbishments offer, we have found in our Office Worker Survey (OWS) that the main reasons for attending the office are for face-to-face meetings and team building, and even just a change of scenery; gyms and games rooms don’t have the same importance.
A few office owners realise this and are now providing alternative options to the fancy high-rises being developed around cities. To combat rising vacancy rates, many secondary offices focus on options to allow people to use offices for this primary need – seeing other people.
But, think about it. To those seeking just a few days/meetings each week, a non-prime space may be all you need for a successful office.
Moreover, Remit’s ReTurn research, looking at office attendance throughout the UK, has found that secondary cities such as Cardiff, Bristol and Leeds, have had a much higher return to office than many major cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester. The graph below shows Remit’s figures on office occupancy via the latest ReTurn report:
If it’s true that it’s the highest-spec, fanciest buildings that are attracting people into the office, surely we would see that attendance is highest in the major cities where you typically find these buildings?
That’s not the case. So what’s going on?
Our Office Worker Survey suggests an alternative view: the commute is the main deterrent for going into an office. This backs up the divide we’ve seen by location across the country:
Looking at the two pieces of Remit research, it’s clear that secondary cities are still a great location for B-grade offices. Firstly, smaller cities generally have shorter commute times. Secondly, the adaptive B-grade offices still provide the main attraction for staff – somewhere to conduct face-to-face meetings and to be with your team.
If you’d like to discuss this subject further, please get in touch with our Research Consultant via email elijah.lewis@remitconsulting.com.