Aberdeen City Council’s Marischal College HQ is “about half full”, but bosses have vowed not to pressure staff back into the office.
The local authority’s Broad Street base has space for 1,150 workers, but hundreds of desks are sitting empty every day.
Following a crunch summit on the future of Union Street this week, calls were made for the city’s biggest employer to boost trade by encouraging a mass return.
A business leader told us such a move could improve footfall – and result in vacant units being snapped up.
But the council today confirmed it would continue to put employees first, saying practices are “always” based “first and foremost on the requirements of the role”.
How many council employees are working from Marischal College?
We can now reveal that recent figures suggest between 500 and 650 workers are regularly operating from Marischal College.
But top brass have offered assurances that number is “generally rising”.
Marischal College, the world’s second biggest granite building, is capable of hosting 1,300 staff.
Since the police and Scottish Enterprise began to share the complex last year, they have been using 150 of those spaces.
The calls for the council to act came after the summit heard about the knock-on benefits of Shell’s forthcoming relocation to Union Street.
What’s the impact of Aberdeen City Council’s hybrid working on footfall?
During a recent meeting, council co-leader Alex Nicoll raised the subject, asking about the impact of hybrid working on the struggling city centre.
He said: “We are a major employer in the city.
“How people work nowadays has changed with quite a lot of hybrid working.
“What effect may that have had on our city centre?”
Pandemic has ‘made a big difference’
Steve Whyte, the authority’s resources director, confirmed that the council is “monitoring” what other city centre offices are doing.
He added: “We have always offered the hybrid option but obviously the pandemic has made people understand what that looks and feels like.
“It has made a big difference to the number of people in Marischal College.”
Today’s front page of @pressjournal. What do you think? Should more council workers be encouraged back to the office to help boost city footfall? @crunro and @BenHendry1 report 👇🏻https://t.co/XgJ0VjFzBC pic.twitter.com/pENJPJA8ow
— Rebecca Buchan (@rbuchan_PJ) November 11, 2022
And the body’s corporate landlord Steve Booth explained that numbers got as low as 200-250 when only essential workers came in at the height of Covid.
He added: “Smarter working and hybrid is not new for the council, albeit we are going through a period of test and trial of more flexibility at the moment.
Our average is about 500 just now, some days peaking at about 600 or 650. It is a generally rising figure as well.”
Aberdeen City Council says hybrid working can be best for staff
Since the pandemic resulted in record low numbers of people going to work, more and more people have been returning to their old routines.
A business owner who attended the Union Street summit told us that “getting everybody back into the office” would help the city centre bounce back.
And a local surveyor said such action from the council “would have a hugely positive effect on the surrounding area”.
He added: “It could literally bring back hundreds of people a day, who could make a difference just by grabbing a coffee or a sandwich.
“Every little helps.”
A council spokeswoman today stressed that, as a “flexible employer”, the authority offers a “range of working styles, which includes part-time and hybrid working”.
She stressed that practices are based on what’s best for the role, and for the public.
In total, Aberdeen City Council employs 8,000 staff across sites like depots, primary schools, community centres and libraries.
Conversation