HOME SWEET HOME OR WHY NO ONE WANTS TO WORK IN THE OFFICE ANYMORE

I woke up in the middle of the night, incapable of processing the dream I had just seen – it was so unexpected.

In my dream, I was in the office, in our old Mayfair building, surrounded by my team members. It felt so surreal, like travelling back in time. The sun was sneak-picking through a side window as I was staring at the bulky corporate phone set at my desk. It looked so alien. Everyone was at their desks, like it was the most natural thing.

For a moment, I wanted to jump up and start hugging everyone. These were my team members, dear colleagues, and friends; I couldn’t be more delighted to see them.

This was when I realised that I miss that life – waking up, dressing up, taking a train while scrolling through my Spotify lists, chatting with my colleagues about work and not only. But it was me then, and here is me now – a proactive businesswoman who minimised the business costs, got all systems online and now offers work-from-home options to my employees.

Would I go back, I wondered? Despite missing the lively office set-up, a part of me is now too used to working from home. And yes, it feels rather dull at times, I have to confess. But the perks are great too – picking up my kids from school, spending mornings doing yoga rather than travelling to work, never missing a delivery…

As a recruiter, my biggest challenge nowadays is placing people in work-from-office jobs. Everyone seems to get too comfortable with their home-working experiences and established routines, especially those with kids. And as we see more and more employers offering home-working or hybrid options, the employers who don’t struggle to find employees committed to travelling on a daily basis.

As for me, would I go back to the full office set-up for my business? Well… no. Because despite me missing the office vibes, I feel I found the set-up which works for everyone. We still have a get-together office, but not in Mayfair. The work-from-home option allows me to hire people from all over the world and cut expensive office costs. And I believe we found better ways of spending those saved office money as we created more enriched opportunities to bond as a team. Here are a few alternatives we are exploring at RSI: meeting in parks, restaurants or cafes, travelling to a warm place for short brainstorming/meet-up/chit-chat breaks, taking turns in arranging barbeques ??