Covid: Admiral says offices must attract staff working from home

City centre offices are going to be "more important than ever" for companies with hybrid working plans, the boss of insurer Admiral has said.

The FTSE 100 company's UK CEO Cristina Nestares said offices must be attractive for staff to "make an effort, commute, come to the office".

The company has sites in Cardiff, Swansea and Newport and is offering staff a mix of home and office working.

Meanwhile desks are appearing in gyms as alternatives to working from home.

Lockdown home working "was tough and it did cause some problems" for younger colleagues at Admiral, Ms Nestares said.

Since being established in Cardiff in 1993, Admiral has grown to employ about 7,000 staff in south Wales and a further 4,000 at other locations in the UK, Europe and the USA.

Ms Nestares said the city centre office spaces have "always been important - location, location, location - but it is going to be even more so in the future".

She added: "We are going to ask our staff, a lot of whom are very comfortable working from home, we are going to say: 'Make an effort, commute, come to the office'."

Bookable desks, break-out areas and re-designed floors are currently being introduced at the company's headquarters in Cardiff city centre.

"We want the office experience to be fantastic, in the office and outside," Ms Nestares said.

Admiral is regularly ranked among the best employers for staff satisfaction and wellbeing, but Ms Nestares said the immediate switch to home working at the start of the pandemic caused issues for some employees.

"We soon realised that for the younger segment of our staff, it was actually harder," she said.

"They were the ones who maybe lived by themselves, or they didn't have a big house, and it was a bit too much - they were missing the social interaction.

"So as long as the rules allowed us, we tried to organise events in parks. We had some people come into the office if they had problems at home, or they had some mental health issues."

Admiral said it would continue to develop its hybrid model and respond to feedback from staff.

Other companies are pursuing similar strategies, while some staff seek alternatives to working from a spare room or on the kitchen table.

Rebekah Windsor, 27, is always at the gym, so it made sense for her to take her laptop with her to catch up on her to-do list between workouts.

She is a personal trainer and uses One Gym in Newport for her own workouts.

The gym recently added hot-desks, giving her somewhere other than home to catch up on the paperwork that comes with her job.

"Going back and forth to home to do my admin would not be beneficial to me at all," she said.

"Coming here to train and then quickly catch up on my admin is ideal."

It's not just for gym types. Managers said they had attracted a regular crowd who want desk space without the office commute.

Ms Windsor thinks other gyms should invest in work spaces.

"More people are working at home now, a lot of my clients are working from home and they are struggling a lot with motivation," she said.

"So I think coming here to train and then knowing you can get an extra hour of work in, get your to-dos done, I think it is definitely something that they should start introducing."

While workers are making the most of flexible options, the future of city centre offices seems secure.

Admiral has reduced the number of buildings it uses across south Wales from seven to five, but is otherwise committed to the future of offices.

In Cardiff, many of the newest buildings around the city's Central Station are owned by pension fund manager Legal and General.

"You have always got to look at the fundamentals," said Tom Roberts, who is the firm's head of strategic investment.

"Where are the right opportunities to focus on? Where are the best places to invest? Where do people want to be?

"But I think certainly for the long-term, the amenities that city centres offer and the public transport connectivity are such important considerations.

"That's why we think city centres will continue to thrive."