6 The Sunday Times February 6, 2022BUSINESS
S
am Morgan could not believe
his eyes. Last week, the Bir-
mingham restaurant owner
took a booking for 50 people
planning a networking event
in England’s second city.
That was the first such res-
ervation since the March
2020 lockdowns forced office
employees to work from
home and emptied out Britain’s big cities.
“No one would have even dared try
and set up such an event before now,”
said Morgan, who runs four venues in
Birmingham, including Craft, which took
this booking for the summer.
To Morgan, 39, it was an encouraging
sign that company staff are returning to
their offices after Boris Johnson lifted his
pre-Christmas advice to work from home
if possible. And there were similarly
positive indications last week across the
country’s big cities. The office workers’
favourite, Pret A Manger, reported that
transactions in its outlets in London’sfinancial district had reached almost 80
per cent of their pre- pandemic peaks —
an improvement on the 70 per cent of the
week before. Queues even formed at one
of its Canary Wharf cafés.
On Thursday, journeys to and from
Underground stations in the main finan-
cial areas in the City and Canary Wharf
were up 15 per cent on the week and
33 per cent compared with two weeks
ago, when the restrictions started to ease.
A spokesperson for Transport for Lon-
don said there had been an increase in
demand across the entire network as the
restrictions were lifted.
Big employers in the financial centre,
such as Barclays and JP Morgan, all had
more workers at their desks — and in Scot-
land, NatWest started to ease staff back as
restrictions were lifted.
At the London head office of retail
giant the John Lewis Partnership, work
teams are arranging days to all be in the
office together, and days where they will
work remotely. A spokeswoman saidauthority for London’s financial district,
said office workers were coming back.
That is important, he believes, as people
enjoy working together — especially
young people.
“The City is in many ways the global
coffee house, where people come to do
business, do deals and pick up the gos-
sip,” he said.
Employers on the edge of London,
such as Sky, which has a campus head-
quarters near Heathrow, are also encour-
aging staff back. “Our people appreciate
the flexibility that comes with working
from home, but they also value the
greater energy and creativity when we
come together in person,” said Dana
Strong, chief executive of Sky.
The broadcaster is also opening a new
building, with more areas for Zoom calls,
meetings and socialising to promote
hybrid working.
Yet while the streets were busier in
cities, the crowds have not returned to
their pre-Covid levels. Despite the jump
in the number of Tube journeys, the
numbers of travellers to stations in the
financial sector were 48 per cent of their
pre-pandemic levels.
Nick Mackenzie, chief executive of the
pub chain Greene King, said his takings
showed the effects of hybrid working,
with Tuesdays to Thursdays busier than
Mondays and Fridays.
He explained that London, where
Greene King has pubs such as the Kings
Arms in the City and the Garrick Arms
near Charing Cross train station, was
reviving more slowly than Manchester
and Birmingham.
Back in Birmingham, though, Morgan
thought things were looking up: “It’s the
first time I’ve believed that we’re going to
be finding ways to live with Covid.”Insurance
workers enjoy
lunchtime drinks
at Leadenhall
Market in the City
of London (top
left, and left),
while commuters
wait for the train
home at Waterloo
stationtogether, having fun together — as well as
just being on the end of screens working
together. And that’s without us senior
leaders having to push the message that
we want our people to be back,” he
added.
Nearby, the banking giant HSBC alsoFOOTFALL BOUNCED BACK LAST WEEKCentral LondonCentral London officesAll citiesCities excluding LondonFootfall Jan 30 - Feb 2,
2022 vs week earlier14.52%18.89%9.19%5.05%
Source: Springboardhas its landmark UK headquarters,
where it said staff numbers were up
35 per cent on the previous week.
Yet even as office attendance starts to
crank up, no one is predicting a return to
9 to 5, five days a week, in offices. Hybrid
working — days at home and times in the
workplace — is being adopted by employ-
ers large and small.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at
Springboard, which counts footfall in
cities and retail destinations, said this
was evident from her data.
“While people are coming back to offi-
ces, they are not doing it full time,” she
said.
Last week, footfall was up in regional
cities and in London, including on
Springboard’s measure of office workers,
which showed a 19 per cent rise on the
previous week — bigger than the increase
for the capital as a whole. “That’s a good
sign for central London,” she added.
Vincent Keaveny, the DLA Piper law-
yer who is also the mayor of the localThe week we went
back to the office
With the work-from-home guidance lifted, cities are starting to
hum again. Jill Treanor asks if we are now ready to live with Covidattendance in the office was increasing
each week.
“London definitely feels like it has
been busier in the two weeks since
restrictions were lifted,” Paul Swinney,
director of research at the Centre for Cit-
ies think tank, said.
He predicted that workers would
return to their desks faster than they did
last year, when a push was made in
August for them to go back. That led to a
gradual shift but it took until December
for offices to feel something like full
again. “My expectation is that this time
round people mentally are much more
prepared to go back, as they have done it
once already,” said Swinney.
That was certainly the experience of
Matt Hammond, senior partner for the
Midlands at the professional services
firm PwC. From his vantage point in the
centre of Birmingham — not far from
Morgan’s establishments — he reported a
more rapid return than last year.
“People want to get back to beingPETER TARRY FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES