- 42% of offices are not open to their employees at all
- London accounts for 28% of all nationwide office closures
- 32% of businesses open 4-5 days per week.
A poll conducted by specialist recruiter, Randstad, revealed that 42% of office doors remain closed to their teams. A quarter of organisations (26%) are open 1-3 days per week, with less than a third (32%) open 4-5 days. The poll was carried out between 26th August and 2nd September with over 500 responses.
Adam Nicoll, UK Marketing Director, comments; “We’ve been very much campaigning for the safe return of the workforce to their office environment. This means working in partnership with employers to communicate robust safety measures to welcome their people safely, and confidently, back to their desks. After months working from home and schools reopening, many employees now have a real appetite to return to a more traditional working environment and rhythm to the working week.”
Geographically, London is hardest hit - with one in four offices closed. Adam Nicoll adds; “Whilst we traditionally see the City of London innovating and leading by example, over a quarter (28%) of all those businesses closed for business are based in the capital. The heavy dependence on public transport here, as well as large office based environments is seemingly putting people off a return to big city workplaces. The construction, property and engineering sector shows a marked distinction however, where our recent report identified that 80% of employers confirmed that their sites are now up-and-running, with a third of those (34%) operating at between 80% - 100% capacity. That sector is well versed in following tight safety protocols in the workplace and obviously much of it operates outside too, the office environment presents a different playing field with a virus such as this, but with the right safety protocols in place, we can get the nation safely back to work and give the economy the autumnal kickstart it so needs.
For more information about returning safely back to the office, please click here.
Notes to editors
Poll hosted on Randstad UK’s website between 26th August and 3rd September.
Q How many days per week is your office open?
Not open - 42% votes
1-3 - 26% votes
4-5 - 32% votes
511 votes in total.
The full construction report can be accessed here.
Randstad Construction, Property and Engineering surveyed 131 construction employers and 723 construction workers between June 2020 and July 2020
Contacts
about Randstad.
Randstad is the global leader in the HR services industry. We support people and organisations in realising their true potential by combining the power of today’s technology with our passion for people. We call it Human Forward. In 2019, we helped more than two million candidates find a meaningful job with our 280,000 clients. Furthermore, we trained more than 350,000 people. Randstad is active in 38 markets around the world and has top-three positions in almost half of these. In 2019, Randstad had on average 38,280 corporate employees and generated revenue of € 23.7 billion. Randstad was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Diemen, the Netherlands. Randstad N.V. is listed on the NYSE Euronext (symbol: RAND.AS). For more information, see www.randstad.co.uk