As we move towards a post-pandemic future, working from home paired with declining footfall in city centres has left many hospitality businesses struggling to survive. Since reopening there have been modest signs of recovery for an industry that was brought to a sudden halt back in March last year, but widespread working from home is continuing to limit progress. Identifying the need to support a once-booming industry at its most vulnerable, Birmingham business leaders Jo Seabright and Tim Andrews have joined forces with customer experience expert Phillipa Cresswell and leading app developer Matt Foster, to create brand new online platform; Work From Here.

Work From Here offers remote workers a city-wide directory of venues providing collaborative working spaces; giving users the opportunity to book, search and work within once functional online platform. Working alongside the city’s much-loved cafes, bars and restaurants, the project aims to give the city’s once booming hospitality scene the infrastructure to get back on its feet after being devastated by the pandemic; serving as a recovery tool for hospitality venues maximising capacity and driving an additional revenue stream. Leading the charge for a complete culture change in the way we work, the pilot aims to build a community of remote workers, proving that hybrid-working and hospitality go hand in hand.

Already backed by some of the city’s favourite spaces, including Loki Wine, Penta Hotel, JoJo Lounge, Park Regis and Birmingham City Football Club more and more venues are signing up to Work From Here.

Founder and CEO, Jo Seabright comments: “After months spent grappling with the impact of COVID-19, the hospitality industry is finally being permitted to open its doors after over a year of lost revenue. For the hospitality industry now, all eyes are on the path to recovery as we work to build resilience and innovate new ideas to get consumers through the doors; and that’s how Work From Here was born.”

“Lockdown has, of course, accelerated trends in remote working and raised questions about the traditional office set-up that have truly never been asked on such a scale before. Most venues have under-used capacity at certain times of the day when home workers could provide additional footfall and revenue. Home workers have expressed feeling uncomfortable not knowing whether venues welcome people working for extended periods of time. Work From Here is aiming to eliminate that feeling by providing a platform which allows workers to feel entitled to the space whilst reducing home working ‘fatigue and driving an additional revenue streams.”

“As we look ahead to the realities of hybrid working – both for COVID-security, but also consumer demands for those that have found flexible working more productive – we truly believe Work From Here offers a solution for both venues and employees into the ‘new normal’ and beyond. We cannot wait to open our booking system and truly hope that Birmingham’s venues and workers rally behind the project,” concluded Jo.