This opinion is shared by experts such as Pere Viñolas, CEO of Inmobiliaria Colonial, and Ismael Clemente, CEO of Merlin Properties. Both participated in the talk Teleworking and Covid-19. The future of offices within the framework of the Barcelona New Economy Week (BNEW), where they analyzed the challenges facing teleworking in the coming months.
Both Viñolas and Clemente have admitted that "remote work is here to stay" in many sectors but have pointed out that jobs that are 100% remote "are those that can be automated" in the future, endangering the employment of those same workers. For this reason, they have advocated for moving towards "green teleworking" in which the option of working from home serves to improve the quality of life of employees, but is not seen by companies as a mere cost-saving measure. To achieve this, the key will be to develop a flexible employment policy, which allows teleworking but without reaching "the physical extinction of space."
In fact, they consider that offices will continue to be a vital space to develop the "intangible aspects" of companies, such as brand, relationships between employees, and the pride of being part of the company. In this sense, Viñolas has pointed to the need to create efficient offices that improve the employee experience and are sustainable, while Clemente has recalled that "the quality of the office is good for attracting and retaining talent in the workforce." Thus, both believe that the office of the future is moving towards a reduction in its population density, that is, there will be larger offices with fewer people, allowing a "decent space" for employees.
Viñolas and Clemente have also called for "more flexible urban planning" that allows adapting the uses of buildings to the needs of citizens. Thus, they have proposed developing "freedom of uses," whereby constructions could be adapted to the final use as they are built, without having to follow the rules of urban plans. In this way, a building originally programmed as offices could become residential during its construction or vice versa. All this with the aim of merging teleworking with office employment to improve the quality of life of citizens.