Most Companies Failing To Adapt Workspaces to Post-COVID Reality

For all office landlords’ fears of a realigned workplace that incorporates WFH and other post-pandemic strategies, it does not appear that most companies are adapting corporate workspaces to meet these future trends, at least according to new research from occupancy and analytics provider Locatee shows. 

The firm based its findings on interviews with corporate real estate managers across the US and says that most companies are being held back by “outdated” real estate strategies. Firms are conservatively upgrading workspaces, the report says, and companies are typically sticking with their existing configurations of assigned desks over hot desks, coworking, or shared spaces. Around 62% of CRE managers are planning to continue to use assigned workspaces, compared with 4% who plan to use activity-based spaces.  

Despite this opportunity to reimagine their working environments, firms are conservatively upgrading their workspaces and largely sticking with their existing configurations, the report states.  In turn, “very few firms will succeed in delivering on the very factors for which their workspaces are being changed.”

The report also shows that while CREMs have been historically viewed in a support role within large firms, they’ve gained strategic influence over the course of the pandemic. Two-fifths of those surveyed think that new level of influence will persist post-COVID, but despite that increased prominence, only 46% of CREMs have final budgetary sign-off. 

“CREMs still lack the decision-making authority to match their level of responsibility, and 62% of those interviewed stated that lack of stakeholder buy-in was a significant or very significant challenge, making it hard for them to convert their knowledge into tangible actions,” the report says. “This lack of budgetary control, despite elevated strategic influence, means CREMs face a significant barrier when implementing ground-breaking action around real estate strategies….This focus on business efficiency, both in the short and long term, is at the expense of emerging initiatives such as collaboration, employee satisfaction, digitization and talent attraction and retention.”

Nearly two-thirds of the CREMs surveyed by Locatee say physical offices will be the “focal point” for most occupiers over the next five years, though they also believe assigned workspaces will no longer be effective in achieving business goals. And nearly 90% say space efficiency will focus more on employees’ comfort than on density. 

“Despite the realization that change is needed, these business initiatives are not being prioritized accordingly,” the report says. “With their increasing influence, CREMs are the individuals best positioned to make budgetary decisions around workspace and real estate. Organizations must provide CREMs with the opportunity and authority to implement the long-term vision needed to change offices for the better.”