I should not be surprised by the behavior, yet I still find myself astounded by the online commentary from “commercial real estate experts.” They seem to think the only goal businesses should have is to “boost office utilization.” Their fear, uncertainty, and doubt shine through when they opine on the latest company to either support hybrid strategies or praise companies forcing employees to return in greater volume than they ever worked from the office.
Boosting office utilization as a thing unto itself is silly. Offices are not inherently the best place to be. If they were, we would not be in the situation we are in where employees are choosing any location other than the office for where to work. Real estate people trying to force them to simply come back is not a good strategy.
That said, boosting office utilization may be the side effect of other business-driven strategies such as:
- Increase in-person collaboration associated with business drivers
- Create networking opportunities to encourage the learning and development of newer team members
- Improve retention of knowledge and colleagues through targeted culture-building activities
All these would have the side-effect of increasing office utilization, but they all start from a business rationale. Workplace is an enabler, it is not a reason for employees to commute in and of itself.
The other aspect of this is that lower utilization is not a bad thing on its own. If there is a day a month where the space is full-ish, that is justification for the office on at least some level. It is important for all of us in real estate to think differently about real estate metrics and what good looks like. Just because we used to track a certain target as good, does not mean that target is still good.