Since the dawn of corporate real estate, businesses have seen it as a necessary function but not one they wanted to think about the strategy of. In most companies, the closest most leaders came to thinking about their real estate strategy was when the office they sat in was up for a project and they…
Tag: Workplace
“But what can we do in our offices about Mondays and Fridays?”
If you are in corporate real estate, the odds are good that this is one of the top 5 questions you have been asked over the last year. In the US, everyone knows that office occupancy is very low on Mondays and Fridays. [Note: it was probably low on Mondays and Fridays before the pandemic…
What is Flexible office leasing in the work-from-home and hybrid era?
I have spent most of my time in 2023 thinking about flexible real estate. It is a topic that seems both urgent yet also surprisingly undeveloped. It is both the future and still very much non-existent in most markets. But the questions swirling through my head are many. Let us start by clarifying, this is…
Corporate Real Estate should always be first about people. Offices are a byproduct of giving people a space to excel within.
It is incredibly easy for real estate people to focus on the office. Most of our metrics are space first because that is what we can control. Cost per square foot, square feet per person, square feet per desk, and desk per person are all space-centric. Sure, some of the have people as a denominator,…
Yes, technology in the workplace is rapidly evolving. But if you do not get the basics right first, the new stuff will never work.
Let’s talk workplace tech (no, I’m not going to talk #PropTech because that is just marketing jargon). It is a fun and vibrant topic that never fails to draw interest. If you want to cause a debate between companies, discuss the pros and cons of Teams versus Zoom versus WebEx versus Google Meet for calls…
Improving Employee Experience goes hand-in-hand with reducing real estate costs. 5 areas to reduce costs while improving the experience.
There is a stereotype that improving employee experience within a workplace requires increasing costs. Companies often attempt this approach in practice but it rarely actually works for a few obvious reasons when you step back and think about it. Cost and experience are related but it follows a curve. The more you spend, the more…
If you mandate 3 days a week in the office, you are not offering hybrid work opportunities.
Mandates are the rage yet again. We went through this in the middle of 2022 when COVID-19 restrictions first began disappearing. Then again at the end of 2022. Now again in early 2023. It is a never-ending hot topic for business leaders who have no clue how their employees worked before the pandemic, how they…
Boosting office utilization should not be the goal of any workplace strategy.
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…
Workplace design has never been more important, but overanalysis can be extremely dangerous.
The pandemic is over! The pandemic is over! I’ve heard the cries up and down the streets worldwide from individuals, colleagues, business leaders, and governments. The declaration of freedom has been loud and excited from all quarters. The theory seems to be that by saying it often enough will also mean that it never happened….
My thoughts on desk booking systems for managing space and occupancy (hint: I don’t like them)
Desk Booking has been the hot item in “PropTech” for over a year now. Sure, most of the systems pretend to be something like the “OS of the Workplace,” but that’s just fancy sales window dressing. The reality is that any time a company begins contemplating having fewer desks in their office than people assigned,…