In the UK at least there are indications that several major companies are preparing to cancel leases and reduce their total office footprint.
Both Barclays and Lloyds for example have flagged that they expect to reduce the size and number of offices, with Barclays' CEO saying "putting 7,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past".
I don't think it will be a quick process, not least because there are a lot of long term leases in place, but odds are a lot of businesses will use e.g. expansion or leases expiring as an opportunity to experiment with more working from home to see how it works before making new long term commitments, and assuming it works there is every chance there will be increasing pressure from shareholders etc. if people see competitors slashing office costs dramatically.
I think that reflects more of a question of how to manage a transition. E.g. Barclays appears to have wanted to get rid of its investment banking office in London since before Covid anyway, for example, and even in this article, it says:
> In his latest remarks, Mr Staley appeared to cast doubt on the idea of abandoning those hubs, saying: "We also have a responsibility to places like Canary Wharf, like Manchester, like Glasgow."
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> He added: "We want our people back together, to make sure we ensure the evolution of our culture and our controls, and I think that will happen over time."
Which sounds like more of a question of how to handle the fact they're sitting on vast amounts of land in long leases in prime locations and have realised leaving offices empty without being able to point to economic benefits will lead to all the wrong kinds of attention, while realising that it will take them time to make it happen smoothly.
Also further down in the article, it points out this:
> However, not all big banks take the same view. Last week, NatWest told more than 50,000 staff in a memo that they could continue to work from home until next year.
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> The bank, then known as RBS Group, said it had been reconsidering how the bank works "in the longer term" and intended to tell staff about "future ways of working" later this year.
It's clear it will take a long time before things starts going back to normal any way, and every month these employers have to adjust to working remotely, and recover efficiency while working remotely, the incentive to go back to big offices will drop.
I also know someone who worked at UBS when they moved into their new London offices, and they'd totally ditched fixed offices for most staff and moved to hot-desking for everyone, with the intent of significantly reducing the proportion of staff in the office at any one day. That was well over a year ago. Many of these banks have been looking for ways to reduce their office footprints for years already.
Both Barclays and Lloyds for example have flagged that they expect to reduce the size and number of offices, with Barclays' CEO saying "putting 7,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past".
I don't think it will be a quick process, not least because there are a lot of long term leases in place, but odds are a lot of businesses will use e.g. expansion or leases expiring as an opportunity to experiment with more working from home to see how it works before making new long term commitments, and assuming it works there is every chance there will be increasing pressure from shareholders etc. if people see competitors slashing office costs dramatically.