Anyone involved in or thinking about changing offices needs to think differently. As life returns to some sort of normalcy following the pandemic years, some things revert to how they were, but other changes are here to stay. The office is one are where change is permanent. A recent report from the McKinsey Global Institute [READ IT HERE] explores the lasting impacts f the pandemic on real estate. It is an interesting read, and their projections provide some serious food for thought.
The report believes that from the pandemic the “starkest change was where and how [people] worked.” The effects of this have been particularly felt in what the report refers to as “superstar cities”, where they project the “demand for office and retail space is generally lower in 2030 that it was in 2019.” Their research “suggests that few of the people who left will return”, and that “hybrid work is here to stay and office attendance is down by 30% on average”, while believing that these current rates of office attendance could persist. A significant impact of this is on city retail trade because “when people come to the office less often, they shop less often near the office.”
Consequences of the lower demand for office space includes tenants wanting shorter leases, and a “surplus office space, particularly in the lower-quality and older buildings.” Whereas demand for the higher quality buildings will be stronger as many employers see high-quality office as a way to encourage office attendance among employees.” Buildings can be “designed to accommodate different degrees of collaborative and individual work or different arrangements of open and closed offices.” That is, “the office does not have to be just a place to work; it can also be a place where employees genuinely enjoy spending time or where they can take part in compelling events and activities.”
In summary, if moving or renovating offices is on your agenda, you need to ensure they are places that employees actually want to come to as places for more then just sitting at a desk. The paradigm of office design has changed permanently.