The hybrid office model combining on-site and remote work is increasingly popular. But employers who adopt it face an enormous challenge: They must determine how to balance health and safety, productivity, cost-savings, and employee satisfaction. It’s an exceptionally difficult balance to attain and there’s no historical precedent to follow, but data can help guide decisions.
The MRI Software Market Insights team has been gathering such data from landlords, office tenants, and employees through surveys we’ve conducted with CoreNet and with Brivo, a provider of cloud access control and related technologies. The findings tell us what employers are planning, what technologies they’re adopting to improve health and safety, what landlords are expecting and planning, and what employees are seeking. Below are some notable highlights:
Commercial Occupiers
- 90% will allow remote working after the pandemic – a third more than before the crisis.
- 71% say the shift to remote working has fundamentally altered their approach to space usage.
- 56% plan to lease less space.
- 54% plan to expand their use of hot-desking, with only 20% keeping all workstations assigned.
- 83% plan to adopt new technologies to support changing workplace requirements.
Employees
- 40% prefer working from home and 35% prefer a mix of on-site and remote working. Only 24% prefer to work full-time on site.
- 59% are concerned about health and safety in the on-site office.
- The top measures that raise confidence in health and safety among returning employees are 1) temperature scanning, 2) limitations on the number of people on site, and 3) touchless technologies.
Landlords
- 63% report that their tenants are negotiating new lease terms.
- 64% plan to adopt new technologies to support changing workplace requirements.
- 77% have increased their communications with tenants since the pandemic began.
Takeaways
What can we glean from these findings? In my analysis, they suggest several strategies for employers/occupiers:
- Collaborate with landlords on safety measures. Employers can take it upon themselves to ensure that their office space meets the highest standards of air filtration, social distancing, sanitation, and touchless technologies, but if common areas of buildings don’t meet the same standards, or landlords neglect best practices for on-site access and visitor management, health and safety will be compromised. That’s why landlord/tenant collaboration is essential. It’s encouraging to note, therefore, that 64% of landlords plan to adopt new technologies to support changing workplace requirements. That supplements the efforts of the 83% of occupiers who plan to do the same thing.
- Collaborate with landlords on space needs. Collaboration shouldn’t stop at health and safety. Both parties can benefit from negotiations on space. Tenants can decrease their square footage, as many hope to do, and achieve cost-savings. Landlords who accommodate these decreases build strong relationships that translate into future renewals and even expansions. Landlords can also buy back and re-lease the space, or even launch a co-working facility in newly vacated space. Demand for such facilities is likely to rise as the pandemic wanes. With these considerations in mind, we’re pleased that 77% of landlords have increased their communications with tenants since the pandemic began.
- Optimize your space. Whether or not you are decreasing your footprint, you should optimize your space for the hybrid model. For instance, if you’re expanding your use of hot-desking, as 54% of employers/occupiers intend to do, you’ll want to manage this process safely and efficiently. There are apps that allow employees to book a desk in advance. When they arrive at the office, the app’s wayfinding feature then directs them to the correct location. From a layout perspective, space-planning software can help determine the appropriate number and type of personal workstations and collaboration areas so that employers can uphold social distancing requirements while catering to employee preferences. To fully optimize space for the hybrid model, employers should take advantage of communications technology that promotes better teamwork between remote and on-site employees. Dialing in to a speakerphone in a conference room just doesn’t cut it in today’s world of Zoom and Teams.
- Learn and adapt. Although we recommend that employers look to data to inform their real estate and HR decisions, we also have to issue a caveat: Decisions should not be set in stone. If a vaccine-resistant variant emerges, for example, employers will have to rethink the on-site side of the hybrid equation. Like it or not, the next six months will be an experiment of sorts. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Amid the uncertainty, we are all learning what works and what doesn’t work. The end-result may be a new set of practices that benefit employers, employees, and landlords alike.
Brian Zrimsek is an industry principal at MRI Software, where he oversees market research.