Brian McCarthy, managing director of Le Masurier developers, said that people had got used to working remotely during the Covid-19 outbreak, setting a trend which he believes will continue and drastically influence how future office workplaces will look.
Meanwhile, Lee Henry, managing director of the government-owned Jersey Development Company, said that office floor-space requirements were likely to be reduced as firms offered workers more flexible working hours.
Both men said that they wished to press ahead with the planned large-scale developments in Bath Street and the International Finance Centre on the Esplanade, despite the disruption caused by Covid-19.
Mr McCarthy said, however, that he felt a lot of remodelling of commercial office space could be expected.
‘From a development point of view I think that all businesses will be reviewing their desk and spatial requirements,’ he said.
‘People have now gotten used to working from home and there’s going to be a lot more of it. There will also be more virtual meetings rather than people travelling to attend meetings so I think there will be consequences for how people use office space going forward, particularly for larger employers.’
He added that work was already being carried out within his firm to prepare for the ‘new future office’.
‘With the development briefs that we are now looking at, we are asking what will the office space of the future look like,’ he said
‘The professional teams that we assemble, which include architects, constructors, engineers and so on, are all reviewing what those requirements are going to look like.
‘There’s quite a lot of material out there in terms of briefing papers on this. One thing that is certain is that it is going to be very, very different rom the traditional office we are used to.’
Mr Henry said that the matter was being discussed regularly at JDC meetings.
‘Our view is that it is still too early to take a definitive stance on remote working,’ he said.
‘The British Council for Offices has done a survey of various industry leaders and the general view is humans are social and most people would like to continue having the face-to-face contact of an office so I think there is still definitely a role for the office.
‘But I think, moving forward, we will move to a scenario where employers will need to be more flexible with their working arrangements and offer staff the option of working at home a few days a week.
‘If you were to have your staff work from home one day a week that’s already a 20% reduction in your office space requirement. The flip-side is requirements for social distancing in the office but that will likely be short-term.’
Mr Henry added that he believed that the ‘high quality’ commercial office development on the Esplanade would continue to be attractive for tenants moving out from older buildings across St Helier when their leases expire.
Meanwhile, Martin Clancy, managing director of Dandara, said it was ‘too early’ to know what the future office might look like but pointed out there could be unforeseen difficulties with increased remote working.
‘I now that some firms are trying to get their staff back now and while staff may want to work from home there will be issues with compliance,’ he said.
‘You might have two people who work for rival organisations working in the same space for example. I think we will have a better idea of how things are going to look when we start getting to stage two and stage one of the lockdown.’
