Working from home is here to stay at Deloitte, which has scaled back its London office space in one of the biggest reductions of its kind since the pandemic.
The accountancy and consulting firm has cut its office space in the capital by more than a third as employees increasingly adopt a hybrid model of working partly in the office and partly from home.
It has abandoned two buildings which had 250,000 sq ft of office space in total, cutting its holdings to just two remaining sites with 485,000 sq ft of space for workers.
No jobs were lost as a result of the changes to office space and employees working in the two closed buildings on New Street Square in central London, were moved to Deloitte’s remaining offices, a source told the Financial Times. The company has extended the leases on its two largest buildings in central London until 2036.
Deloitte has reduced its UK office space more significantly than the other Big Four accountancy firms, KPMG, PwC and EY, which are its main competitors.
The organisation closed its offices in Gatwick, Liverpool, Nottingham and Southampton in 2020 and offered the 500 members of staff affected by the plans the option to keep their jobs provided they worked remotely.
The firm told workers to decide how often they wanted to work from home, with a recent staff survey showing that the majority of employees wanted to come into the office two days a week.
KPMG decided last year to shut its technology centre in Manchester and move staff to its main office in the city. Many professional services firms are slightly cutting down on space or maintaining their portfolios because the number of employees is on the rise.
Commercial property developers, landlords and flexible working groups have struggled with the declining demand for office space since the start of the pandemic, with offices less than 25 per cent full in February, according to the newspaper. Before the pandemic, they were between 55 and 60 per cent full, on average.
Stephen Griggs, Deloitte’s UK managing partner, said the firm would continue to make investments in offices across the country. “We are constantly reviewing our office space requirements to reflect changes to our ways of working and our sustainability objectives,” he said.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has demanded that cabinet ministers do more to get their civil servants back to the office after the vast majority of Whitehall departments were found still to be operating at less than half of their normal capacity.
The minister for government efficiency has told colleagues to monitor staff attendance fortnightly, warning: “We have significant progress to make.”
An audit conducted across Whitehall shows that calls by ministers for civil servants to return to the office have gone largely unheeded almost three months after work-from-home guidance was lifted.
About 80 per cent of government departments were found to be operating with less than half of all desks in use and 36 per cent were operating at two thirds of normal levels. Before the pandemic average staff occupancy across Whitehall was about 80 per cent. Rees-Mogg has written to all senior ministers demanding that they issue “a clear message” to officials in their departments, telling them that they expect a “rapid” return to the office.
A league table attached to the letter reveals the departments with the fewest staff coming to their London offices as a percentage of total office space. The least occupied is the Department for Education, operating at 25 per cent capacity. The Department for Work and Pensions is running at 27 per cent and HM Revenue & Customs at 33 per cent capacity.
The most occupied department was international trade, where 73 per cent of desks were taken up. The Department of Health and Social Care was on 72 per cent and the Ministry of Defence on 67 per cent. The average use of desk space across the government’s Whitehall estate was about 45 per cent. Ministers said that they did not have reliable data for staff outside the capital. The Foreign Office is operating at 31 per cent capacity and the Home Office at 42 per cent.
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, accused Rees-Mogg of being less interested in “productivity or delivery” than spending time “counting civil servants in and out of buildings”.
Not sure this will be noticed on here, everyone loves to jump on the train that noone is allowing hybrid of WFH anymore!
Good! The vast majority of office jobs can be done this way. The only reason there is a push back is due to commercial landlords having too much influence on government and old fashioned managers who micromanage and want to watch people in the office.
Government should be championing hybrid working!
This will be widespread, closing regional offices and consolidating into reduced London office sizes. Deloitte is a bit funny in this though, as it is a primarily client based business. I was rarely in the office when I was there years ago. And no one really cares if you wfh when not working on a client site.
Edit: this also slightly hides the fact they built a huge new office at New Street a few years ago, and the two buildings they’re leaving were way past their best. I’m sure covid played a part but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was in planning at some level.
Edit 2: Deloitte are also the sort of firm to say it’s up to you, but if your partner or manager want you in the office, there’s really not much choice. This will be a case of letting each team determine what works best.
I assume that a move towards WFH would also change demographics in the more rural parts of the UK.
After all if you only need to commute a few days a month you might not mind the greater distance.
Nick Ferrari is going to have a hernia if he reads this…..
6 comments
Arthi Nachiappan, Economics Correspondent
[Monday April 18 2022](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/deloitte-does-the-numbers-and-makes-hybrid-working-permanent-r7xgk2wbj)
Working from home is here to stay at Deloitte, which has scaled back its London office space in one of the biggest reductions of its kind since the pandemic.
The accountancy and consulting firm has cut its office space in the capital by more than a third as employees increasingly adopt a hybrid model of working partly in the office and partly from home.
It has abandoned two buildings which had 250,000 sq ft of office space in total, cutting its holdings to just two remaining sites with 485,000 sq ft of space for workers.
No jobs were lost as a result of the changes to office space and employees working in the two closed buildings on New Street Square in central London, were moved to Deloitte’s remaining offices, a source told the Financial Times. The company has extended the leases on its two largest buildings in central London until 2036.
Deloitte has reduced its UK office space more significantly than the other Big Four accountancy firms, KPMG, PwC and EY, which are its main competitors.
The organisation closed its offices in Gatwick, Liverpool, Nottingham and Southampton in 2020 and offered the 500 members of staff affected by the plans the option to keep their jobs provided they worked remotely.
The firm told workers to decide how often they wanted to work from home, with a recent staff survey showing that the majority of employees wanted to come into the office two days a week.
KPMG decided last year to shut its technology centre in Manchester and move staff to its main office in the city. Many professional services firms are slightly cutting down on space or maintaining their portfolios because the number of employees is on the rise.
Commercial property developers, landlords and flexible working groups have struggled with the declining demand for office space since the start of the pandemic, with offices less than 25 per cent full in February, according to the newspaper. Before the pandemic, they were between 55 and 60 per cent full, on average.
Stephen Griggs, Deloitte’s UK managing partner, said the firm would continue to make investments in offices across the country. “We are constantly reviewing our office space requirements to reflect changes to our ways of working and our sustainability objectives,” he said.
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Oliver Wright, Policy Editor
[Tuesday April 19 2022](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/order-civil-servants-back-to-office-jacob-rees-mogg-tells-ministers-vtfjrtczx)
Jacob Rees-Mogg has demanded that cabinet ministers do more to get their civil servants back to the office after the vast majority of Whitehall departments were found still to be operating at less than half of their normal capacity.
The minister for government efficiency has told colleagues to monitor staff attendance fortnightly, warning: “We have significant progress to make.”
An audit conducted across Whitehall shows that calls by ministers for civil servants to return to the office have gone largely unheeded almost three months after work-from-home guidance was lifted.
About 80 per cent of government departments were found to be operating with less than half of all desks in use and 36 per cent were operating at two thirds of normal levels. Before the pandemic average staff occupancy across Whitehall was about 80 per cent. Rees-Mogg has written to all senior ministers demanding that they issue “a clear message” to officials in their departments, telling them that they expect a “rapid” return to the office.
A league table attached to the letter reveals the departments with the fewest staff coming to their London offices as a percentage of total office space. The least occupied is the Department for Education, operating at 25 per cent capacity. The Department for Work and Pensions is running at 27 per cent and HM Revenue & Customs at 33 per cent capacity.
The most occupied department was international trade, where 73 per cent of desks were taken up. The Department of Health and Social Care was on 72 per cent and the Ministry of Defence on 67 per cent. The average use of desk space across the government’s Whitehall estate was about 45 per cent. Ministers said that they did not have reliable data for staff outside the capital. The Foreign Office is operating at 31 per cent capacity and the Home Office at 42 per cent.
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, accused Rees-Mogg of being less interested in “productivity or delivery” than spending time “counting civil servants in and out of buildings”.
Not sure this will be noticed on here, everyone loves to jump on the train that noone is allowing hybrid of WFH anymore!
Good! The vast majority of office jobs can be done this way. The only reason there is a push back is due to commercial landlords having too much influence on government and old fashioned managers who micromanage and want to watch people in the office.
Government should be championing hybrid working!
This will be widespread, closing regional offices and consolidating into reduced London office sizes. Deloitte is a bit funny in this though, as it is a primarily client based business. I was rarely in the office when I was there years ago. And no one really cares if you wfh when not working on a client site.
Edit: this also slightly hides the fact they built a huge new office at New Street a few years ago, and the two buildings they’re leaving were way past their best. I’m sure covid played a part but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was in planning at some level.
Edit 2: Deloitte are also the sort of firm to say it’s up to you, but if your partner or manager want you in the office, there’s really not much choice. This will be a case of letting each team determine what works best.
I assume that a move towards WFH would also change demographics in the more rural parts of the UK.
After all if you only need to commute a few days a month you might not mind the greater distance.
Nick Ferrari is going to have a hernia if he reads this…..