Economics

Dan O’Brien: Everyone wins in the change to working from home– except the office owners

Workers are happier with less commuting, the environment benefits and employers save on costs, but owners of offices should be very afraid that the office rental sector is set to go the same way as retail

“Metro, boulot, dodo”: commute, toil, slumber. That is how the French, decades ago, described the grinding monotony of modern urban life. More than two and half years since office drones started working from home en masse, one thing is certain: they will never again accept ten rush-hour commutes a week, most of which were utterly needless.

If desk slaves can have more “dodo” and less “metro”, and be at least as productive as when they ...