One Property Manager Finds Success Transforming Amenities Into Virtual Offerings
Office owners are devising creative solutions for the remote worker and Accesso has converted its tenant amenity/wellness program into a virtual service to bring the same offerings from offices into tenants’ homes.
HOUSTON—With everyone currently working from home, the need to keep employees engaged is more crucial than ever. Office owners and managers are devising increasingly creative solutions to stay on top of this mandate, providing a variety of virtual amenities that are designed specifically for the remote worker.
During this time, these services are in high demand and growing, and office operators are becoming keen on including new optionality as tenants continue to stay home. Accesso, an investment manager and operator of multi-tenant office buildings, has converted its tenant amenity and wellness program, Accesso Club, into a virtual service to bring the same quality-of-life improvements from its office buildings into tenants’ homes.
Accesso Club is an exclusive amenities program offered to all of the firm’s tenants and employees, and a core part of how it differentiates its office properties. One of Accesso’s core values is promoting and enhancing a sense of community, so Accesso Club is a key part of uniting its family of tenants.
The program focuses on individuals’ health and wellness, and promotes a healthy work-life balance by providing employees opportunities to enjoy fitness classes, tenant lounges, co-working spaces, conference facilities, concierge services and discounted tickets for various events. Tenants have the ability to unwind after a long day at the office or utilize a space to enhance productivity. Additionally, Accesso Club is offered throughout the portfolio, so tenants have the ability to utilize these services in all the cities in which it operates.
The Accesso virtual program includes an app featuring wellness coach classes which offer live and on-demand yoga, meditation and fitness. People are also seeking escape in other ways: in lieu of weekend activities and get-togethers, many are binging on Netflix, hosting video conference calls with friends or catching up on reading. Accesso Club’s virtual program seeks to bring a feeling of daily normalcy back into the fold, with virtual access to museums, art exhibitions, concerts and other activities to foster family time and make isolation more tolerable.
“Given the impact the coronavirus has had on property owners throughout the world and how much our tenants have come to rely on Accesso Club to help them stay physically and mentally fit, we knew we needed to get creative when the shutdown went national,” Claudio Dombey, founding and managing partner of investor relations for Accesso tells GlobeSt.com. “Therefore, we made most of the wellness classes and seminars Accesso Club offers available online. For instance, the wellness coach app offers both live and on-demand classes for yoga, meditation, fitness, mental health, stretching and more, giving tenants new ways to stay engaged and active while working from home. On the virtual Accesso Club page, we give tenants access to a compilation of live virtual concerts from across the world, categorized by date and genre, as well as a host of museum experiences that can be enjoyed remotely. Additionally, there are virtual family activities such as Cirque Du Soleil, national parks, the Georgia Aquarium, Access Mars and much more.”
The unique programming offered via Accesso Club includes quality activities that improve tenants’ health and well-being. And, the virtual version of the program builds on that concept.
“By going virtual, we’re able to bring some of the events that we had hosted on-site prior to the onset of the pandemic into people’s homes,” Dombey tells GlobeSt.com. “We also added several virtual programs to entertain our tenants until we can go back to our regular programming at our buildings. The comprehensive suite of virtual amenities and experiences offered through Accesso Club is different from other tenant amenity programs because of its distinctiveness, intuitiveness and variety. The activities we’re offering go beyond the typical live fitness classes or newsletter updates, though we have also increased the frequency and scope of our newsletters to keep tenants informed throughout this period. Our programming offers new ways to spend time with family, stay healthy and self-entertain as we all navigate this uncertain time.”
Environmental, social and governance initiatives have never been more critical, and the current health crisis has shined a spotlight on the important role wellness plays in the office sector, Dombey says.
“Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, we began utilizing the patented Blue Box cleaning process for HVAC systems across the majority of our portfolio,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “This process ensures our buildings are circulating the highest-quality air and lowers the risk of spreading infectious diseases. We believe air quality and proper ventilation will factor heavily into ESG strategies for the built environment post-COVID-19, and we plan to roll this cleaning process out to the rest of our portfolio to maximize tenants’ peace of mind as the federal government considers reopening sections of the economy. In addition to improving the health and safety of our tenants, we also recognize the need to support those in the communities we serve, so we are doing things to help like sponsoring an online donation drive that supports food banks and other related charities in the markets we serve.”