The vast majority of office workers in Hong Kong would like to have the option of working from home, a recent Microsoft survey found, more than a year after corporate workplaces experienced their first pandemic-related lockdowns.
In partnership with public relations firm Edelman, the computing company surveyed more than 1,000 full-time office workers in early January.
Two thirds of survey respondents elected to continue remote work arrangements, a fact not lost on management. Microsoft found that 65% of corporate leaders in Hong Kong plan on redesigning their offices to better suit a "hybrid" system that allows working from home as well as the office.
"Physical office space must be compelling enough to entice workers to commute in, and include a mix of collaboration and focus areas," the report found, noting that overall office demand is expected to decrease going forward.
The stakes have never been higher for the city's commercial property market, which recorded a new 17-year high for overall availability rate in the first quarter of 2021.
Looking to cut costs in what was once the most expensive city for rent, corporations are surrendering office space, while their employees work from home.
In 2018, average annual rent in Central hit $307 per square foot, 30% higher than London's West End and more than 50% higher than in Beijing's finance district, according to real estate group CBRE.
But rents in Hong Kong have fallen steadily every year since on the back of tumultuous social protests and a deadly pandemic. By the first quarter of 2019, average rent in the city fell by nearly a quarter, with the central business area on Hong Kong Island feeling the brunt of the impact with a 29.1% reduction.
To be sure, even before the pandemic, some companies had started pivoting towards flexible work from home arrangements.
"We have adopted flexible working policy since 2005 to empower our employees to work anytime, anywhere, by taking advantage of our technologies and tools," Cally Chan, general manager of Microsoft Hong Kong, said.
