COVID-19 lessons learned and implications for corporate real estate in order to thrive

The acceleration of macroeconomic trends due to the pandemic will have a material impact on work models, industry sectors, geographies, and government support. Understanding and planning for the implications will present opportunities to thrive.

Organizations will need to evolve their talent strategies to address changing skill requirements and shortages due to increased automation, geographic dispersion of permanent and remote workers, and the evolution and preservation of corporate culture. Additionally, companies will have to evaluate whether the current trend of workers moving from dense urban areas to smaller cities is a long-term reality or just a short-term reaction to the pandemic. The likely implication is the adoption of new regional hub-and-spoke deployment models. State and local economic developers will likely have to evolve their investment attraction strategies and incentives to include an increased emphasis on capacity-building to attract skilled workers that may work for multiple companies under job-sharing, crowdsourcing, and remote arrangements. Even though all of these trends were occurring prior to the pandemic, the inevitable acceleration will make planning and flexibility paramount for market participants to thrive.

Download the PDF for specifics around the changing business climate and considerations for corporate real estate–driven location decisions across major property types.

For the past two decades, as companies thought through where technology fit within real estate and facilities business functions, it was often in a very targeted way. Perhaps there was an initiative to weave facilities management capabilities into an enterprise employee self-service portal. Maybe the introduction of conference room kiosks spurred investment in space reservation capabilities. In 2019, real estate teams were driven to take their paper contracts out of fire safes and key them into lease systems, prompted by their lease accounting brethren running to meet new disclosure requirements. But in each of these examples, there’s rarely an underlying vision that considers how the various technologies can work together in support of the workplace. As we look ahead to operating in the new normal, have the stars aligned—finally—for companies to realize that a comprehensive workplace technology strategy is no longer aspirational? It will soon be table stakes.

Download the PDF for five reasons why real estate tech matters now more than ever, and key considerations that should be top of mind.

Over the first two weeks of January 2021, more than 100 CEOs participated in a Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey. The survey found that CEOs expect 1/3 of their employees to continue working from home in January of 2022 and anticipate needing 26% less office space in 2022, compared to 2019 levels.

As organizations prepare to reenter the workplace, it is an important time to start exploring the opportunities and value that can be derived from a long-term strategy in the next normal. There are two major ways organizations can think about cost optimization when it comes to their real estate: portfolio optimization and workforce and workplace strategies.

Portfolio optimization

● Benchmark facility performance and costs against the market trends and industry leading practices

● Identify and prioritize cost-saving opportunities and drive facility efficiencies

● Rightsize the portfolio to meet the needs of a redesigned workforce and workplace strategy

Workforce and workplace strategies

● Collaborate with HR to understand talent initiatives that will affect workplace utilization, location, and space requirements

While the cost levers remain the same, demand for space, services, and amenities and the supply market for real estate have fundamentally changed; companies are planning now to reshape their portfolios and workplaces.

Download the PDF for specifics around the reshaping of real estate portfolios and workplaces to support cost optimization objectives post–COVID-19.

As reentry begins, it is expected that employees will go to the office for intentional purposes. The routine work activities that can be handled remotely will continue as such. It is likely that a smaller, more targeted workforce will come back in a meaningful way. Some of the things corporate real estate leaders should consider include:

● Develop criteria to determine who should come into the office, to what extent, how often, and when it will be appropriate to bring targeted employees back to the offices.

● Identify the functions and roles that should return to the office.

● Identify which activities are critical to be conducted in-person in the office and understand what activities can’t be performed at home today.

● Deploy change management and communications cascades to drive confidence and motivation for the returning workforce.

Download the workforce and portfolio strategy PDF for specifics around near- and long-term implications around real estate supply and demand drivers.

The health and safety of employees and the cleanliness of facilities will be top of mind for the operations team. The following items should be considered:

● Develop screening protocols for the workforce and visitors at entrances.

● Revise sanitation procedures and update SLAs to increase frequency of cleaning schedules, especially of common areas and meeting spaces.

● Consider introducing and/or increasing work shifts to reduce density in the office and allowing for facilities staff to sanitize spaces throughout the day.

● Establish safety protocols for isolation and control of sick workers.

● Source and provide for PPE and safety supplies (such as N-95 masks and gloves), as needed.

Download the facility operations PDF for key considerations around topics such as enhanced maintenance compliance, access management, vendor governance, scenario planning, and more.

Physical distancing practices could remain prevalent and may affect usage of spaces, furniture configurations, and choice of finishes. Corporate real estate leaders should consider the following:

● Promote safe space density by alternate seat usage, using large meeting rooms for smaller-size meetings.

● Repurpose small enclosed spaces for individual usage only.

● Review seat-sharing policies and prepare a structured shared program (for example, use for the day).

● Identify high-touch surfaces (door handles, elevator buttons, and switches) and consider replacement with self-cleaning materials.

● For common areas, block or remove seats and identify odd and even seats to maintain physical distancing.

In the current environment, employees may value how employers treat them even more so than in the past. As such, it will be important to maintain focus on their experience and engagement, no matter where they work from. In that regards, the following items should be considered:

● Enable remote work through appropriate infrastructure, flexible policies, and trainings to make WFH effective for managers and contributors.

● Establish feedback channels and listen to the workforce to understand concerns as conditions change, leveraging analog and automated processes.

● Provide whole-health benefits and a wellness concierge; consider an on-site doctor and supporting spaces.

● Assess opportunities to improve and implement wellness-related building standards and solutions.

Download the “whole health” and well-being PDF for detailed considerations around helping support the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of employees returning to office buildings.

Smart technologies can help prevent the spread of illness, monitor wellness, and make employees more productive. Key considerations include:

● Partner with the IT team to improve digital infrastructure, collaborative technologies, and hardware to support increased connectivity with remote teams.

● Evaluate smart building management capabilities across leased and owned facilities, such as predictive maintenance solutions, air quality sensors, UV cleaning, infrared temperature cameras, and HEPA air filters.

● Evaluate digital twin technology for managing and operating building facilities.

● Utilize reservation systems to provide adequate time for sanitation between bookings.

Download the digital workplace and smart building PDF for specifics around how smart building technology can enable more efficient facilities management and help support a safe and healthy environment.