Two of three Hong Kong office staff want to keep working from home, boding ill for demand in the world’s most expensive office market

Hong Kong’s office workers overwhelmingly want to have the option of working from home, as more than 12 months of lockdowns and quarantines have upended corporate culture and work arrangements, with spillover implications for the world’s most expensive urban centre.

Two out of three respondents in the inaugural survey conducted by Microsoft said they want remote work options to remain, while 65 per cent of Hong Kong’s corporate leaders said their companies are planning to redesign their office space to accommodate a “hybrid’ culture that combines in-office and work-from-home arrangements.

“Physical office space must be compelling enough to entice workers to commute in, and include a mix of collaboration and focus areas,” according to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index report, an online survey involving more than 1,000 full-time office employees in Hong Kong conducted with Edelman Data x Intelligence between January 12 to January 25.

The survey underscores the precariousness of Hong Kong’s commercial property market, as overall availability rate rose to a 17-year high of 14 per cent in the first quarter, with large occupiers such as multinational corporations surrendering their space while their employees were stuck working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, according to data by Cushman & Wakefield.

Overall office demand will decrease with the use of both office and remote work as companies do not need their full team in the office every day, said Cally Chan, general manager of Microsoft Hong Kong and Macau, which set an early example of flexible working policy way before the coronavirus pandemic struck.