Are you back in the office? We tend to start all of our conversations like this. Well, are you? If you are in San Francisco or New York City more than 60 percent of you would answer in the negative. Here in the Garden State the answers are a bit more nuanced. Many large companies in suburbia have chosen a hybrid model. Hybrid work schedules mean that employees come into the office on assigned days, and they work from home on the unassigned days. This can be a formal schedule or a more loosely arranged one, depending on your corporate structure, client meeting and project schedules.

To save operating overhead, we find large sales force operations are now hoteling. What is hoteling? In a hotel office, upon entry the employee will check in, choosing a desk to sit at for the day where his phone calls are then automatically routed. In this way, salesmen are free to either work from home or come into the office as they choose for all of or part of the day.

Hoteling was first developed by the Big 6 accounting firms in high rent cities like New York City to save on the high occupancy costs of downtown Central Business District office space. Hoteling greatly reduces the inefficient utilization of space caused by permanent assigned seating and will allow a company to reduce its footprint dramatically.

As part of the great return to the office, we are finding that as leases expire, many large space users are reexamining the way in which they utilize space. As the pandemic has receded the first folks to return to the office have been the executives and their direct support staffs. Many of these folks have been working in a virtual ghost town for the last few years. As stated above, CEO’s who are paying huge rents for underutilized space have, over the last year, been trying to find ways to coax their employees to return.

As leases expire, they are now having to make many tough decisions. How many of the employees will now work in the office, work from home or be on a hybrid work schedule? Which departments need to be in a physical team environment and which ones can operate virtually?

For the last two years, corporate America has been reluctant to make these rather disruptive decisions but time is running out. As leases expire, big decisions are on the horizon which will affect the way we work and the entire real estate industry for years to come.

So, are you back in the office? If you don’t know the answer to that question, give us a call and find out why, at Dickstein Real Estate Services, OUR DIFFERENCE IS YOUR ADVANTAGE®.

Regards,
Lawrence Dickstein