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At the start of the first lockdown, all of a sudden everyone was working from home. And considering all the uncertainty around the dangerous and deadly new virus, it was going really well. So the big question was raised: why don’t we just keep it this way? Why not have employees work from their kitchen table? If the business can be run like this in the pandemic, surely it can continue once it’s over. But can it?

The advantages were being listed one after another: no time wasted in traffic, no issues with parking, no need to put a suit on in the morning, extra time in bed, no need to spend money on snacks, lunches and coffees… And the list goes on. Soon we found ourselves attending virtual meetings with a respectable top, but still in pyjama pants. For those of us who are parents it wasn’t easy to focus at all. And then we started noticing when someone else was working from home. How many of us had to make an important phone call to an airline or a bank only to find that the overworked and very stressed phone operator cannot be heard because their dog is barking in the background. That’s even once we got through to them in the first place, following all those staff cuts, but that’s a whole other story. And it’s around that time we all started missing the office and even got a little sentimental. Ahh those chitchats with colleagues in the staff kitchen, those little laughs, birthday cards signed by everyone in the office… And the clean, comfortable, peaceful environment of the office once again became appealing. Don’t get me wrong- It’s nice to roll out of bed and go to work from your kitchen table in your PJs once in a while, but how many of us can do this full time? Eventually you want to see your colleagues face to face. You might even secretly miss them a little.