As the nature of corporate real estate shifts before our eyes, there is a lot of talk about future-proofing real estate portfolios and workplace designs against on-going change. This makes perfect sense as a concept. Anytime things are in a state of constant change, making yourself resilient against future state impacts is wise. The challenge…
5 not-so-simple steps for building a Real Estate Portfolio Strategy for 2023 (and beyond)
I hear the question “What will real estate portfolios look like in the future?” a lot these days. Words like Hybrid, Flexible, Resilient, Agile, Mobile, Collaborative, and Smaller keep playing on repeat in real estate strategy sessions. However, these are usually just descriptive words in these sessions without much data to back up what they…
Hybrid Workplaces require teams to reimagine their cultural dynamics when not together as often.
While no one agrees on what hybrid working means in practice, it is universally agreed that it means less often in the office than in 2019. A very small percentage of people are back as often as they used to be, some people are now only 1 day a week less in the office, and…
The conundrum of Impossibility. Sometimes just having the wrong mindset leads to the outcome.
Self-fulfilling prophecies are painful to deal with. Knowing that the wrong thing is going to happen and there is nothing you can do to stop it fills most of us with a sense of dread. Who in their right mind wants to know a bad thing is coming and there is nothing to prevent it?…
Thinking a bit about Real Estate and ESG. It comes down to processes and outcomes.
If the big topic of the year in real estate has been hybrid working, a close second has been ESG and all of its subcategories. For those not aware, ESG is Environmental, Social, and Governance. As an area, it provides a lens that companies can use to evaluate their actions that impact the broader world….
Occupancy data is a reflection of in-office preferences and decisions. In times of dramatic change, it is most important to stop, look, and listen than to dive into historical data.
After writing my post a few weeks back on dangerous data, I kept coming back to this mental image of what is actually happening within our workplaces that makes the data so misleading and untrustworthy. Dangerous data does not simply spring forth from nowhere, it is the result of circumstances unlike those that came before….
Operations are always both deep and wide and should significantly influence your strategic plans
One of the most important aspects of any strategic plan is understanding how it will impact actual day-to-day operations. If a strategy cannot be reflected through the daily work that happens, nothing will actually change. The thing about operations is that while many think they understand it, no one person can actually know everything that…
Thinking about Return on Investment (ROI) and Corporate Real Estate
Return on Investment is an important concept in finance. It is a key tool for someone investing money to figure out whether that investment is a good decision. A positive ROI means that there is more money coming in for the investment than going out. When comparing two possible investment opportunities that are otherwise equal,…
Considerations for the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday conundrum in corporate real estate planning
One of the truisms for most corporate real estate teams (whether project management or facilities) is that more people are in the office during the middle of the week than the start or end. This effect is more pronounced in certain businesses and countries, but is fairly consistently seen everywhere. It has existed for multiple…
If you are evaluating Work from Home against Work from Office, you are looking at the wrong problem.
I am astonished at the number of articles and think pieces that continue to come out comparing the pros and cons of WFH to WFO. Somewhere, the world collectively decided these two concepts are mutually exclusive when the truth is the opposite. It is entirely possible for companies and individuals to maximize the collective benefits…