Brendon Craigie,
Co-founder and CEO, Tyto PR

When I set up Tyto in 2017 I wanted to develop our business around a new location agnostic operating model. This model means that we have an entirely remote team that works as one across Europe. Our employees can opt to work from home or in a co-working space.

I had three reasons for adopting a location agnostic model. First, I wanted to build a fast-paced dynamic agency but without my previous three-hour round-trip London commute. Second, I saw a fixed office as the greatest constraint on access to talent as it limited the catchment area to recruit the best people from. Third, I wanted to build a one team culture across multiple European countries and I saw offices as building barriers between people.

The benefits to our employees, our clients and our business of a location agnostic model have been significant and satisfying. Without the shackles of costly London commute, we achieved my goal of having a talented, connected and productive agency team who can live anywhere, and work anywhere, and deliver outstanding service to clients.

The strength of our location agnostic model of working has been very much confirmed during the Covid pandemic, as it prompted safety measures that saw employees and companies forced to overcome location as a barrier to work. At Tyto we have been fortunate that this way of working has been ingrained in our day to day since the beginning, meaning we were able to continue to work with little disruption to our regular operations. Other companies working in the traditional central office model had to spend time grappling with the challenges of connecting a newly scattered team and infrastructure while the economy was hemorrhaging and society hurting. We were also able to share tried and tested best practice advice with our clients and collaborators. During the Covid-19 crisis, I am delighted to confirm that not only has Tyto not suffered a business downturn, but we have been growing at our fastest pace ever, proving the validity of our PRWithoutBorders™ model. In fact, you can explore what it is like to live a location-agnostic PR agency life in our series of blogposts featuring our amazing team members.

As we had anticipated last year, working from home remained in place a while longer, as the government advised travelling to your central office only if you absolutely must. However, we also forecasted that in the not-so-distant future workers would be required to shrug off their trackpants, dust off their travel cards and contemplate travelling back into a central office. With only a small percentage of people in the country vaccinated, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak were already suggesting UK workers had had enough “days off” and urging companies to reopen offices when the pandemic eased.

After spending some time experimenting with a new way of working, both enjoying some benefits while equally experiencing frustrations, workers are likely questioning the validity of their daily commute into the physical, central office. Many actually reject the idea of going back to work from an office all week long – over half of staff say they will quit their job if not provided post-pandemic flexibility in where and when they work.

We created this annual study into the time and financial costs faced by London-bound commuters to shine a light on the costs they likely bear, and to raise the level of debate about considering the newly tested alternative ways of working that are better for employees and better for business.

This study looks at the cost of a commute when travelling to London from the most popular commuter towns. We’ve anchored our research around a nominal London central station of King’s Cross, one of the city’s busiest underground stations. The costs measured in this study are time and financial but there are undoubtedly significant health and welfare costs which impact employees and their energy levels at work which are hard to objectify. These include:

• Greater restrictions on where you choose to live because you need to commute each day to London
• Higher property costs and less flexibility when securing schooling and childcare for children
• Less time with friends and family
• Less time for leisure and exercise
• Less time to focus on eating a fresh and healthy diet
• Less time to rest and recharge
• More stress from travelling during peak hours
• More apprehension about being exposed to viruses in cramped commuting spaces

It is not difficult to estimate that the impact on employee happiness is considerable. Most employers will agree that there is a direct correlation between a person’s happiness and their level of productivity and enjoyment of their work.

I hope you find this study valuable and we welcome feedback on how we can make improvements to it next year.