How Working Remotely Will Change The Future Of Commercial Real Estate 

Sanjay Rishi is America’s CEO for JLL commercial real estate. Rishi was recently interviewed to discuss the future for the industry in a post-pandemic world, and what most business leaders can expect in the coming years. 

Rishi claims that the commercial real estate market will likely be embracing a range of new hybrid models as the pandemic comes to an end; whenever that may be. Throughout the next few years industry leaders like Rishi will likely begin implementing hybrid models into their business deals. It’s likely that the specifics of these deals will be on more of a deal-by-deal basis, as this is uncharted territory for all parties involved. 

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CEOs, CFOs and other leadership positions will be responsible for how they want to rebuild their company culture post-pandemic, however, Rishi believes many are going to be basing their future office-hybrid needs on the ways they’ve already adjusted to working from home throughout the past six months. 

The main focus right now is transitioning a company from remote working, back to an office environment and maintaining a new level of morale. JLL has been doing their own research throughout the pandemic, surveying multiple corporate workers and their preferences for the future of office-working, and according to their most recent study, 58% of workers miss the office; the survey was taken by 3,000 individuals all of different job levels. 

Obviously, the biggest determining factor to making that transition will be when the pandemic ends/when a vaccine is able to be distributed. Of the workers surveyed who aren’t looking forward to returning to the office, many claimed the reason to be a fear of mass transit, crowded elevators/cubicle spaces, and other potential sources of infection. 

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“After the terror attacks of 9/11, no one really wanted to work in high-rise buildings, major urban centers shuddered with a lack of demand for commercial office space. Fast forward a year and people returned to crowded skyscrapers again, and real estate transaction valuations returned to where they had been earlier.”

It’s difficult to compare a terrorist attack to a worldwide health crisis, however, in terms of real estate the two actually do slightly equate. Many real estate agents working in major metropolitans aren’t worried about the complete lack of industry activity, because they’ve seen how the industry is able to bounce back from massive national/international tragedies. 

The biggest change, according to Rishi, will be the way offices re-shape their set-ups to better adhere to social-distancing requirements. This will be a step-by-step process that will also involve digitizing as much of the business as possible. As most corporations have learned from working at home, having everything in one, digital space for universal access is much easier than needing to go back and forth from the office in the middle of a pandemic to get some paperwork done. It’ll also make it easier for everyone to access what’s been worked on throughout the past six months while everyone’s been on lockdown. 

Companies will also need to take their workers with kids into account more. If office buildings begin reopening while the pandemic is still ongoing, many will need to figure out some sort of coverage for their kids. In a hybrid-office environment, this could involve staggering workplace teams so that certain groups of parents can alternate the days they need to be in the office and the days they can be home. 

Regardless of what the future of office-work looks like, it’s going to be a team effort for each specific group of workers to make a plan that’s the safest, and easiest for everyone. We’re all taking this pandemic day-by-day, and will continue to do so even as it begins to slow down and normal life resumes.