London workers limit days in office due to cost of commute

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Londoners have been slower to return to the office than workers in other global cities, according to new research that suggests employers in the UK capital should subsidise commutes rather than paying for perks.

The Centre for Cities think tank said that out of six cities where it had surveyed employees and employers, central London had the second lowest office attendance, with full-time staff spending an average of just 2.7 days a week on site in spring 2024 — though that was up from 2.2 days a year earlier.

While this was similar to the rate of attendance in Sydney and Toronto, it compared with an average of 3.1 days a week in New York’s central business district and 3.5 days in Paris, the global leader.

More than a quarter of workers in London go into the office only once or twice a week, with just 62 per cent attending on at least three days — compared with 80 per cent of Parisians.

Travel costs are one of the biggest factors driving this difference, the Centre for Cities found, with more than 40 per cent of London workers citing savings on their daily commute as a key reason for working from home.

A divide has opened up between younger workers living near the city centre, who tend to be in the office more regularly, and older workers living in the Home Counties, who are still reluctant to travel in.

The think-tank said this suggests employers would do better to redirect any money set aside for office refurbishments and perks into subsidising travel — as Parisian employers are already legally obliged to do.

But in all cities, London included, employers could impose tougher office mandates than they do at present without driving staff to leave for competitors, the think-tank said.

Fewer than one in 10 workers in London said they would look for another job if their employer asked them to come to the office more regularly, its survey showed — even though almost two-fifths of employers said they did not dare mandate more office days for fear of staff quitting.

Rob Johnson, author of the Centre for Cities report, said recent weakness in white-collar hiring could be one reason why employers who took a tough line looked unlikely to lose staff, but that whatever the explanation, employers “should not shy away [from stricter mandates] based on overblown fears”.

The think-tank argues that boosting office attendance should be a goal for policymakers, as previous economic research has shown there are benefits to productivity from having high-skilled workers clustered together where they can transfer ideas and knowledge through face-to-face contact.

But other economists say there is no clear evidence of hybrid working arrangements having a big effect on productivity in either direction. Nick Bloom, a professor at Stanford university who has led research on hybrid work, argues it helps staff retention without hurting performance.