The office is now a destination, not a routine. What's a Landlord to do?

By Ken Giannini, Board Director, MCM Architecture

Every week a new survey is published or a statement from a CEO hits the press related to corporate occupier’s desire to adopt a form of hybrid working for the long-term post Covid 19. And as a result, the desire to occupy less space in their central office hub. This is not however the death of the office and the discussion about the future of work and re-purposing the office for collaboration, mentoring, creative work and the cultural glue for organizations is well documented. Organizations' will need offices.

But what about the landlord? Landlords are asking- What do we do now to attract and keep great occupiers, and fill our buildings?

I have an idea that is of its time. A time when the world has started to cooperate, collaborate, and work towards a common purpose. When work, life, values, and priorities are shifting. Employers are seeking to look after their people in a holistic way in and out of the office.

What if landlords came together with their occupier clients to support lifestyles not just workstyles?

The starting point of this idea is for landlords to ask yourself, who is your customer? No, it’s not the CEO or the CRE Director, but the entire workforce that occupy each and every building in your portfolio. Yes, all the portfolio not just those within a single building.

My suggestion is treating your occupiers as Members not Tenants. Members of your exclusive club. Provide those members with perks and benefits.

For example, access to all the shared landlord provided facilities and events in all the portfolio…the co working spaces, the reception breakout spaces, gym, cycle parking, showers, TED talks and events, the concierge services, etc. Across the whole portfolio not just within their own building. Landlords can provide a variety of benefits and facilities, but not have to do it in every building.

On top of that landlords support your club members lifestyle not just work. Tap into the buying power of that community of members by negotiating discounts or benefits with lifestyle products such as Netflix, Just Eat, Spotify, Uber, cinemas, theatre, health clubs, and etc. all accessed via an app that has all the products, services, locations, perks in one place for the members.

Look at the numbers: in the extreme case both LandSec and British Land have about 6-7million ft2 of office space in London alone, each. That equates to a population of occupiers (members) of around 600,000 members each. That is the population of Bristol! One hell of a buying power community. And this idea will work for smaller landlords as well.

The basic membership is free but special services or products are commercialised via service charge. Say a Gold, Silver and Bronze type of membership.

Imagine the win-win; occupiers win as the CEO that does agree which building to lease can see this as a benefit to all their staff. Landlords build brand loyalty and differentiate themselves. And keep their customers within their portfolio for the long term. Dare to imagine, is this the time for that illusive concept of partnering?

Originally published by Ken Giannini as a LinkedIn article on 21/02/2021 as part of the #BCOvoices blog series.

Corporates seeking a return to office-working this year face a new set of employee wellbeing questions

By Jenny Brand, Director at Teneo.

As the third lockdown drags on – past Christmas, past the Beast from the Baltic, past who-knows-what-else in the coming weeks – we clearly have a desire to return to the office when safe. YouGov polling shows that fewer than one in five workers want to only work from home, while businesses gain from the office’s important role in boosting creativity, corporate culture and employee development. Home working will remain, but it will be balanced with time back in the workplace.

However, returning to the office is no simple task – as some of us may have experienced last summer. Having packed our laptops and struggled into some work-appropriate attire, we returned to a workplace much changed from what came before. In came the hand sanitiser and plastic screens. Out went our pre-pandemic way of working, so too employers’ past relationship with their employees’ health.

At the time, these changes may have felt temporary – a bridge between the pandemic’s supposed early peak and it apparently being wrapped up by Christmas. Now we know that change is here to stay.

Covid-19 looks set to be an ongoing part of our lives. The virus is varying and mutating and, sadly, is unlikely to just go away – something evidenced by Health Minister Edward Agar’s comment that the Government is considering annual booster jabs to ward off Covid-19, similar to how we fight flu. For business, both its continued presence and its lasting impact create a range of challenges.

First, employers will need to stay abreast of Government guidelines. Having made strong progress with its vaccine rollout, the Government looks set to encourage offices to reopen this autumn. This means offices will reopen before the Government intends to lift social distancing guidelines, so some measures will stay in place. Plus, in the longer term, variants may require new measures to be introduced. Understanding and implementing these will be no easy task.

What’s more, employers will need also to consider their vaccine and testing policies. Doing so is fraught with potential pitfalls. Understandably, most employers will want to encourage staff to be vaccinated. But what to do with employees reluctant to get the jab? How, while respecting employee privacy, can vaccine uptake be monitored within the workforce? These are not easy questions, and no one answer will work for every business.

And these are just the most immediate and tangible concerns. The pandemic has changed how employees view employers’ responsibility to their health, something which is an important driver of trust. We’re yet to fully see just how Covid-19 has shifted these expectations, so employers must be switched on to this change.

In America, we are seeing the rise of the Corporate Medical Officer, dedicated to staying on top of these challenges. Given all the above, should such a figure be employed? The role is uncommon the UK (for now) but it is an idea that demands consideration.

The reopening of offices will provide clear and vital benefits. Yet it will also present a new and difficult set of challenges for employers, with Board agendas continuing to be weighed down by points around employees’ health. There is much to discuss, and many opportunities to assess. Deciding action, though, will be tough.

Originally published on 19/02/2021 on LinkedIn as part of the #BCOVoices series of expert blogs.

Cleveland Clinic London, which is building a new state-of-the-art hospital to open at 33 Grosvenor Place, Central London in early 2022, and the leading CEO advisory firm Teneo, have collaborated to develop a set of services to support corporates in getting their staff back into the office when government guidance permits. Interested? Get in touch. Follow Jenny Brand on LinkedIn.

BCO Voices: An Occupiers Insight. Why the virtual office will never replace ‘live work’

By Christopher D Richmond MBA MRICS, Senior Head of Real Estate, PwC

Photocred: Ant Rozetsky

A revolution currently evolving suggests that the traditional office environment is soon to be a thing of the past and be replaced by the virtual office where staff work predominately from home. This supposes that offices will be smaller but used more intensively, made possible by the growth of information and communication technology and desk sharing, offering the potential for savings in occupational costs. At the same time, providing an opportunity to design a solution that optimises the infrastructure expected by staff, creates more efficient methods of working and maximises utilisation. Consequently, the way business manages its people’s needs and operates its office space will be transformed.

Some of you may be surprised to learn the above is an extract from my MBA Dissertation entitled ‘Alternative Ways of Working and its Impact on Future Office Accommodation Needs’ written in 1998. I was struck by how similar my research at that time is reminiscent of those discussions we are having today. Back then technology greatly influenced work styles during the 1980’s when we saw PC’s start to emerge on every desk reinforcing the convention at the time that individuals were fixed to workstations. The 1990’s started having a profound impact on working patterns when the Internet began linking together people and business via information networks on a global scale. The emergence of the information age increasingly centred around the concept of a virtual organisation that created a web of workers, capital, and technologies who operated in a flexible and agile way.

Fast track to 2020 and the outbreak of Coronavirus (Covid-19) has necessitated home working for most office based staff creating a fundamental social change that places people at the heart of modern business. The virtual working utopia we have been looking for it seems. Well not quite. Many employers are taking the opportunity to reassess their business and workforce needs to redefine their workplace strategy that supports the emergence of hybrid working. This envisages staff time being split between the office and home, or elsewhere, leading to inevitable changes to working behaviours and employment conditions. The consequences of these changes will involve looking beyond flexibility and agility techniques to clearly defining how workplaces will function to meet the essential social human needs. In other words, ensuring the working environment is safe, nurturing, secure, calm and aesthetic as a prerequisite to psychological health, well-being and growth. All of which is essential to encourage and reassure staff returning to the office.

Designing a creative, supportive and engaging workplace where people can work intuitively and interact on a human scale should remain the prime objective. But office experience counts for a lot and whilst the long held belief that it should be seen as a ‘business hotel’ in delivering 5 star service and hospitality still holds true, I believe we are entering a new paradigm with the emergence of the ‘business theatre’. A place of opportunities to enhance human condition and gatherings. Where people become the performers and the office provides the stage for social engagement, self-discovery, expression, education and creativity.

As I sit in my garden office writing this article, I am practicing the very essence of home working utilising technology and information networks that were not invented when I started my career in 1988. But here’s the rub. Lockdown has taken away the place where my career was formed, where my dreams are enacted, relationships forged, and successes shared. After almost a year of restrictions, I miss watching ‘live sport’ and attending ‘live events’ that was once our freedom and liberty. But more than this, I crave daily face-to-face interaction and participating in ‘live work’ in a physical office. It is for these reasons the virtual office will never replace the ecosystem dynamics of a vibrant and engaging live office workplace that encourages and enables us to achieve great things, that lifts our spirits and morale when we are down but more importantly, reminds us that we are social beings and that we thrive when we have human contact.

#BCOvoices is a series of blogs looking at the impact of Covid-19 on the commercial property industry, along with broader topics. If you would be interested in contributing, please contact chane.scallan@bco.org.uk.

Follow Christopher Richmond on LinkedIn here.