Could office life be a thing of the past?

It’s been over 14-months since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, with millions of people adapting to lockdown-life and abrupt changes to working patterns, but has this forever affected working life as we know it?

Like many around the world, we as a team have moved to remote working and virtual communications, with lots of us spending the last year waving at colleagues through screens, offering virtual meetings to our clients and getting very familiar with everyone’s kitchens… however as life looks to be resuming some normality, which of these patterns are here to stay?

Some of the biggest changes we’ve seen have been around interview styles. Remote, video interviews offer increased flexibility for busy diaries, often a more relaxed and familiar environment for candidates, and a better chance of getting more decision-makers in one place, so many hiring processes can move quicker and more efficiently.

Many of our clients are still adopting virtual interviews and believe they change the recruitment process for the better. With video interviews being the lockdown salvation for many recruitment campaigns, it doesn’t look like they are set to disappear anytime soon.

We are also seeing a rise in jobs offering hybrid working patterns, with employees splitting their time between homeworking and office time. The benefits can be endless; organisations can hire the best talent regardless of location, employees can save both time and costs on commuting and the flexibility lends itself to that all important work-life balance.

From talking to professionals in our industry every day, the consensus seems to be that while most workforces still appreciate the opportunity to spend time in an ‘office’, interact with their colleagues, meet their clients and attend social events, there is more appreciation than ever for flexibility, so perhaps the hybrid models are here to stay.

We’re working closely with our clients and candidates to support them whatever their new work life looks like – if you would like to talk about your next move or new hire then get in touch!