This year has marked many changes in our lives, some temporary and some permanently.

For most of us, the way we work day-to-day has changed in a fundamental way – whether it is a permanent shift to working from home, a major adaptation of technology or completely changing how a company works to fit the unstable time we live in.

We know the virus is not going away any time soon and with the Prime Minister once again asking us to head back to home working where possible, things remain up in the air for some time.

With no vaccine for the virus, the future of how we continue to work is likely to look different to what we have been used to.

Office layouts, flexible hours and less physical social interaction are just a few of the changes we could be facing.

David King, Colchester councillor and portfolio holder for Business and Resources, strongly believes things will not go back to what they were.

While attempting to look into the crystal ball of the future is a tricky task, making sure our work remains a social activity must be key as we move forward.

Normally, in the council office Cllr King works in, there would be around 350 people.

Right now, however, there are 15 – a likely similar picture in many offices across the county.

The way our businesses will look in the future is “an open question”, but there are key changes we are seeing already.

He explained: “We think, like every other employer, that none of us will go back [to normal].

“Professionally and organisationally, all of that says it’s gone, but what do you end up with?

“Everything is signalling what workers want, what employers want is home and office.

“Employers are still investing some into office working.”

Given we are looking at, at least, the next six months being affected, Cllr King said employers will be continuing to look at the best ways to work.

Over lockdown, he said he has noticed a number of positives across the board.

“My personal view is that there will be a permanent mixture of home and office working,” he said.

“At just a glimpse, for most individuals they have found it positive, although I have heard of situations of people working in their bedrooms so it depends on age and position.

“It’s money and time, they are the clear positives for the individual.

“From the office perspective, in those weeks of remote working I am seeing productivity, but over time we will have to see.”

Social interaction

When it comes to designing and building offices, Mr King recognises that landlords and developers will be responding to the shift in how we work.

“It is an unprecedented economic health crisis, it’s extraordinary the implications for ways of working,” Mr King said.

“The nature of the office and costs of using an office, all of that in my view can’t yet be clear in the middle of a whirlwind it is difficult to see the future clearly.”

He added: “Social and physical interaction – there is still no one better way – they may not go in at 8am or leave at 5/6pm.

“People will still want a head office, they will still want that for those social interactions.

“We may see shorter leases, that might be the way the market will have to adapt to reflect the environment and office space will have to respond to that.

“People will want to have well equipped office space and be able to be more choosy.”

Lack of routine and trying to ‘switch off’

Of course while our physical environments change, so does our mental health – for better or worse.

Valerie Gladwell, a senior lecturer at the University of Essex, takes particular interest in workplace wellbeing.

Over lockdown and onwards, they gathered information from a survey with members of staff across Essex about mental wellbeing.

“Particularly in early stages of lockdown, people were finding work-life balance quite tricky,” Ms Gladwell said.

“Those who had children at home, that was particularly challenging at home trying to do work particularly those with young children.

“A lot of it depended on how much they felt the pressure from their employer.

“Some people, because they didn’t have to interact in the office, could get work done – they didn’t have all those meetings go over and could take time out and break or not have to travel to see people.

“Other people who maybe wouldn’t interact, found the lack of routine very difficult.”

Looking forward, the issue of the work-life balance is key – where many people’s kitchen surfaces morphed into desks and the sofa became a part-time office – the boundaries between home and work blurred.

“That already became a problem with technology,” she said.

“In the UK we are worse than most places at being attached to technology, and it is assumed that we will respond quite quickly to something around the workplace and that’s quite challenging.

“We know it is good to have a little bit of stress to meet deadlines, but with what was changing people felt like you are constantly responding.”

“It’s all about connections”

Naturally, assessing how people felt and adapted to changes in their work environment is tricky – when there are people at all ends of the spectrum.

While some people may have saved money, time and found comfort working from home, especially with added flexibility, others may have felt isolated, uninspired and structureless.

Whether a worker enjoys social interaction or not at work, Ms Gladwell said it is social connections which must be at the front of how our work in the future is designed and structured.

“Some people are good at making contacts and having regular meetings but I know other people are more on the periphery,” she said.

“When they are in the office, they can keep an eye but those people are maybe not being picked up on.

“People who are isolated and live by themselves, their mental wellbeing will definitely be struggling.

“What businesses need to do is ensure that there’s some connection going on across all teams.

“Even just the general chat which is good for us, we know that it gives us purpose and financial security even if we don’t like them, it gives us something.

“If you take that away, that will affect quite severely because the sense of living and being a part of something is gone.”

As we have seen with schools returning, there will be a lot of anxiety for many employees returning to work, Ms Gladwell explained.

She said: “It’s not just the threat of Covid, we have definitely got that people are just anxious anyway.

“To have that isolation, and then face going back, will be a real challenge.

“Employers will need to be sympathetic and phase them back in a way that feels safe. “It’s all about connections though, we will need to work hard on connections.”