Work was historically a place you went, but now is synonymous with what you do. Working from home has been the reality for 100 million Americans (Gallup, 2020) during the COVID-19 crisis. Whether part of the contingent soon returning to the office in phases, not returning until next year, or potentially never returning, the pandemic has accelerated the conversation about remote work, lease expiration, and the demand for office space.
Maximize the Opportunity
Commercial office lease terms are typically 3-5 years. Organizations begin planning at least a year before the lease expiration to formulate requirements, search locations, explore options, negotiate, design and build the office space before move in. The typical real estate decision process centers around 5 main factors:
Location
Quality of building
Amount of space required
Lease term
Tenant improvement allowance
COVID-19 has up-ended the “amount of space” question, requiring a re-examination of what will be needed for the future office. A recent real estate survey (McGregor, 2020) indicated that 44 percent of respondents would lease new office space for their organization. But how to decide on the right office space for your organization?
The pandemic and the massive work from home experiment have presented a unique opportunity for transformation and re-invention of the workplace eco-system. Alternate workplace strategies such as a remote workforce, decentralization of locations, un-conventional seating/scheduling schemes that just six months ago would have been unheard of, are now under consideration.
It is tempting to take the path of least resistance and simply renew at your current office location, give back some square footage and show an incremental bottom-line real estate savings. But this myopic emphasis on cost is a false economy missing a bigger play: to re-consider the employee experience, embrace new ways of working and in the process reduce the office footprint. This article will explore and synthesize the relationships between people, place, and the spaces they work, to inform what to do after lease expirations.