As the vaccine roll-out gathers pace, attention is gradually shifting to the horizon and what’s next for our cities. Alongside this week’s sombre milestone on COVID deaths, and news that 8% of Londoners have already left the capital, there is an emerging debate about whether the city will ultimately swing back to being a thriving centre for work or risk becoming a ‘Gotham City’, as Minister for London Paul Scully MP has warned, ‘deserted apart from those with the means to insulate themselves from infection, and those with no choice’. While it is true that London will be required to re-formulate itself into a safe, sustainable and technologically-enabled place to work, it is equally true that, to borrow from Mark Twain, reports of the death of London are greatly exaggerated.

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In times of crisis we reach for nostalgia, looking back to periods when the world seemed a better place. In recent months a new wave of workplace nostalgia has crept into our psyche. Even the most humdrum aspects of life in the office have taken on positive qualities as we reminisce from our isolated home workstations. The stressful daily commute now seems like the ideal opportunity for a bit of ‘me time’. Catching the early morning train for a short client meeting on the other side of country now sounds like a delicious day out. We even miss the routine office birthday celebrations as yet another employee cuts a Colin the Caterpillar cake.

As we approach the first anniversary of lockdown, debate continues to rage on the pros and cons of working from home and how it affects our quality of life. While there has been much positive anecdotal evidence concerning the benefits of working from home, including articles this week advocating the joys of WFB (working from bed), the reality is that this social experiment is still in its early days and emerging on the horizon is a dark cloud of issues concerning employee quality of life and mental wellbeing that will threaten us in the forthcoming months.

As we all come to terms with the implications of a third national lockdown, cast your mind back to Spring last year when the novelty of working from home was still at its peak. One of the biggest benefits highlighted at the time was that remote working would herald the end of presenteeism, the practice of being present in the office for more hours than is required, as a means of impressing the boss or as a manifestation of job insecurity.

As agile working becomes more established, the role of the corporate headquarters is changing and the idea of the office as a clubhouse that reflects the corporate brand is gaining traction. Not least is this evidenced in research from CBRE, where every respondent to their global study of September this year believed that an office should be a place where a company reflects its brand and culture and provides space for employees to experience community and social interaction.

Over the past decade we’ve witnessed the rise of co-working and a proliferation of flexible office environments, however, during lockdown a whole range of new workspace models has begun to emerge to satisfy post-COVID office needs. We’ve seen new models introduced around safety and convenience, such as lower density workspaces and occupancy sensors that accurately track the density in given areas in real-time, plus businesses providing dedicated workspaces for teams to get together on one-two days a week and then dissipate to work remotely.

Cast your mind back across your career and you can probably identify a series of seminal moments that were key to your success, whether that was receiving words of advice from a wise colleague; watching an inspiring leader in action; or having a chance conversation at the water cooler that opened a door to the future.

One of the biggest challenges in the shift to remote working is the ability to mentor employees. Employees are no longer able to learn by observing peers and seniors in the physical workplace, and tens of thousands of people have started new jobs or changed roles during lockdown having never met their work colleagues. Whilst induction and training programmes can be carried out successfully online, there is no substitute for the physical workplace to build relationships, mentor talent and enable employees to learn from their peers.

When your office is at home and your team is dotted all over the place, it does make it more challenging to demonstrate successful leadership. The rudiments of leadership, from setting and communicating a strategy, to motivating your team to perform and deliver on that strategy, and measuring success, are being tested and reworked.

Lockdown has given us all time to reflect on what the keys to workplace success might be in the post-COVID world and which qualities we need as leaders to navigate the crisis. According to a recent survey conducted by Hall & Partners in collaboration with the Global Thinkers Forum, Saïd Business School and the Women of the Future programme the answer to those questions is one and the same thing: kindness.