A New Era Dawns !

The " working from home " option that was so necessary during the height of the coronavirus has run its course and now business owners are entitled to insist on their workers returning to the office. That will receive a mixed reception in many households and in some cases it may take a salary increase to get workers back into the office.

For many people, working from home was actually a big boost to their spending power.   They were spending less money on fuel for the car if they drove to work and not having to pay rail fares put more money in their pocket.  There were other less direct savings too.  Slapping something together from the fridge was a lot cheaper than buying lunch in the city and not having a few beers with the boys after work retained money unspent in their wallets.

For some women, it made an amazing difference.  The absence of child care or kindergarten fees boosted their spending power and they  managed to do their work and mind their children at the same time. The prospect of returning to the office is a financial disaster.

But it doesn't stop there  The astronomical sums charged for city office space subtracts from the firms bottom line and the one thing this pandemic proved is that a diversified office structure is the way of the future.  Both the internet and the electronic age have changed thinking and it is no longer necessary to congregate staff in a city building to perform the management function.

At the start of the twentieth century, occupying several floors of a prestige building in the inner city was seen as reflecting the power and financial strength of the firm behind the logo.  In particular, the insurance industry chose to advertise its stability by building and naming impressive buildings in the city centre.  That was the time when they employed large numbers of sales representatives selling insurance directly to the public, and today those sales are achieved by innovative advertising on commercial television.

It will be the old fashioned empire builders who try and recall staff back to desk jobs in the city. That was the way of the last century and business has moved to a new mode.  Some will claim that a diversified office structure will increase security risks but security in the electronic age is a matter of having the right protection in place rather than the issue of where it is stored.  Security in many Australian firms consists of not making passwords obvious by writing them, on the desk of the operator.

How commerce handles the end of the coronavirus will have a big bearing on how the stock exchange values firms.  Companies that insist on returning to the old ways and turn their back on the extra profits to be made from diversification will be priced accordingly.

We are about to enter the age of the astute company with a small footprint which manages to grow by selective diversification.  That is one of the benefits this pandemic unknowingly handed to us  !