It’s hard to believe it’s so long ago, but in March 2020 many of us were sent home from our workplaces for what was expected to be a relatively short time.
Half a decade later a good number of us still haven’t gone back full time. Something that seemed just about impossible in February of that year – to consistently work from home rather than the odd day here and there – has become the norm for many people, even if they do have to go to the office a few days a week.
That lack of interest in being in the office has of course had a knock-on impact on numerous other businesses – whether it’s the cafe that now sees little trade on Mondays and Fridays, or the clothes shop seeing less business now its customers don’t need as much office wear. Another knock-on impact has been on the property business, with agents seeing a slowdown in office rents or sales, and fewer deals overall.
So it’s clearly in the property industry’s interest to see workers back in the office. To that end, it is perhaps no surprise that we have seen agents pushing the importance of the office and, more generally, office life.
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The latest offering came from JLL on Friday. Its Workforce Preference Barometer 2025 survey “paints a picture of the Irish office as the centrepiece of thriving professional life”.
Irish workers, it says, have shown a “decisive preference for the office”, with two-thirds of those surveyed having fixed office days and almost the same percentage feeling positive about return-to-office policies.
There are some questions to be asked. For one thing, having fixed office days doesn’t always come from an employee’s own preferences. More often than not that decision comes from company management.
Still, the 63 per cent of workers feeling good about return-to-office policies is notable given the brouhaha we have seen in recent weeks about AIB and Bank of Ireland’s changes to its hybrid working plans.
The biggest issue with this survey, though, is the messenger. We have no doubt about the intellectual rigour of the survey.
Yet is a property agent with a clear interest in people going back to the office the right firm to put out a report showing workers want to go back to the office?
