Two years ago, people thought the office was dead. Thanks to technologies such as Teams, workers transitioned to working from home during the pandemic relatively easily and the prospect of going back to long, expensive commutes on crowded trains seemed unthinkable.

City-centre businesses catering for office workers feared for their future, and everyone wondered what was going to happen to all those gleaming, empty office buildings – monuments to another age.

Over the past two years confidence in office working has returned as those isolated at home want the collaboration and camaraderie of the office back. Bosses have also realised that collaboration is essential to promote good ideas and for integrating new starters into corporate culture. For many businesses, hybrid working – two to three days a week in the office combined with home working – is fast becoming the norm.

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