Where Does Your Firm Rank in The Great Office Transformation?

James Gorman, the Morgan Stanley CEO, “We’ve proven we can operate with no footprint. That tells you an enormous amount about where people need to be physically.”

Our business relationship with office space radically changed over the last year.  Here are questions being debated internally by almost every office-based firm:

• What changes are permanent and what have we learned?  
• Is this a temporary condition with companies and staff eager to return to a historical “normal”?, or
• Did the pandemic simply accelerate the move to a mobile workforce that might have otherwise taken a decade or more although was inevitable?

What we are learning is:  There is no single answer.  It depends on the vision of company leadership and culture, and the nature of their work.

What is emerging is a variety of different real estate use strategies, including:

• Retro – Return to pre-2020 design and use, no significant change to space requirements.
• Hybrid – Permanent offices for full time occupants, hot desking for partial week attendees.  Minimal redesign and reduction, most companies will view excess space as “room to grow”.
• Flex – Little or no assigned offices in favor of hot desking and some portion of staff fully remote.  Significant reduction in office space, typically 40-60%.
• Mobile – Staff prepared to work remote for extended periods.  Office space used focused on meeting and collaborative space, perhaps with coworking or small urban offices for staff convenience.