Get back to the office! But why?

Does not directly affect me as I am now retired but ex work colleagues are working from home and there is no pressure for them to return to the office environment. It works for them, it works for the company, win win all round. This will be the new normal as companies can make vast savings on expensive office space along with employees making savings on the daily commute.

My observations on the government statements are mixed, as much as the statements are.

Public transport is now abysmal with many services cut and "social distancing" supposed to be imposed. Why should employees now start to use public transport when it was such a definate no, at the risk of being crowded in the reduced services.

If the government really want the offices back to "normal" then lets start with parliament and getting MP's back to work, Civil Service and local Councils, get the staff back to work. If this is unworkable then don't expect private business to accept the need.

Not sure how I feel about this, just had a quick look at France and Germany stats and between 70-80% of office workers are back in their Offices, in the UK it’s approximately 35%.

Some people are happy to work from home for some or all of the week, others need the buzz and support of their co-workers and find home working stressful.

All well and good if you have a spare room or an office at home but when you are working at the kitchen or dining table your home is no longer your sanctuary from the outside world.

For those with underlying health issues or a household member who is shielding then they should have the option to extend their working from home.

It’s truly amusing, seeing a Tory Government being so well frankly so Stalinist. Cummings and Johnson think they can have what ever they want( until the next U turn that is). They are going to fall completely and utterly flat on their smug self satisfied faces with this. It’s interesting that the Cabinet is clearly showing a split on this as well. It’s not an either/ or - there are many models developing and I’m sure we’ll never go back to how we were.

Many people find change very scary though, and the way for people to feel secure is to pretend that we can go back to how things were before, exactly like they were before. The same way that if people pretend to themselves that the pandemic is over, then it will be over.

Our economy at the moment is over reliant on the "commuter economy" of coffee and sandwiches, but it wasn't always like that, and it can be different again.

I hope we can be more balanced in the future, balanced between work and home life, balanced between a service economy and manufacturing, balanced between city centres and high streets.

I agree about city centre properties, I live in Manchester and have been watching a TV program called "Manctopia" there are so many new building going up at the moment in our city centre, many of them owned by overseas investors as in London. Those investors will be very opposed to any reduction in the value of those ( mainly empty) properties,

Too bad the UK government is so very far from being geniuses.

My family see going to work as something they would like to do, maybe once or twice a week, rather than every day. Their employers also are now of the opinion that working from home works for them as well! Maybe now we could see more people being moved back into city centres with hopefully more food shops, less pollution and a better way of life.

This may sound like pie in the sky but it wouldn’t take a genius to reorganise round this premise.

Landlords of commercial office buildings will lose income, if companies and their workers decide that working at home becomes a permanent way of working.

This was already beginning to happen. There are a number of local spaces with desks and WiFi for people who can work away from a central office, but maybe don't have the space to work at home.

It's another desperate plea from the government, threatening people with their job if they don't return to the office. However, I think it's going to fall on deaf ears. People have lost trust in government directives.

I fear the reasoning behind this is to protect property prices in the cities - especially London. Boris will be coming under pressure from all the property-owning Tories to get people back into the cities and keep real estate prices sky high.

People have come to realise that there is an alternative to their crazy commuter lifestyles. I hope that this, combined with the money-saving advantages to the companies means we will have a real change. Things don't have to return to the way they were!

In addition I have saved £700 since March by not going to Costa etc. Well I think the petrol costs may have contributed to that as well.

I am afraid I couldn't care less about Costa coffee etc, if people are working from home they are more likely to be supporting the shops in the local area. It's not just about covid its about quality if life, I am not doing a 2 hour round commute to prop up Starbucks.