"Corporate Real Estate is a $4T Dumpster Fire"... and other takeaways from CoreNet Global Summit 2021

That quote was the opening slide presented by Mark Gilbreath of the first session I attended at CoreNet Global Summit last week in Seattle. As soon as I saw it, I knew I was in the right place.

“Are you back in the office yet?” has become as generic of a conversation starter by now as “Isn’t the weather great today?”. Everyone is wondering when things will return to ‘normal’ and this was a gathering of 1,200+ people whose primary job will be to make the office doors open again. Most came to get the answers to these questions from industry peers and thought leaders to help guide them on navigating the journey ahead. After 3 days, I left with the following 8 takeaways:

1)    No-one has the answers yet

There was lots of discussion around possibilities of what could be done, but even those organizations that have started doing something, have no evidence that what they’re doing is right yet.

2)    'It’s not a matter of when the pendulum will swing back, it won’t, we’re working with a whole other pendulum now'

Chris Kane articulated it clearly in his session. Don’t wait for the magic day when everyone returns to the office and things go back to normal. We’ve been working like this for so long that what we are doing right now is the new normal. Now we need to identify what people are missing in this current state and provide it in the new workplace.

3)    There is a clear need to focus on people and experience

The way we planned and delivered real estate in the past was service-centric did not do this. Companies leased space, fit it out and sweat the asset through the lease with a focus on cost control and reduction. There was often little focus on the experience people were having and that needs to change.

4)    The office as we know it isn’t dead, but it now has a bigger purpose

People want an office to go to, it plays an important role in their productivity and wellness, but they want to use it for more specific reasons than just a place to go from 9-5 with an array of average capabilities across the board. Understand what they are missing and provide a place for it.

5)    The old metrics won’t work anymore  

The $ per employee calculation on investment in space is out the door. We now need to take into consideration more data to make truly informed decisions. How often people come in, how long do they stay, what to they want to come in for, how do I make in office capabilities exceed those at home for services they want to commute in for?

6)    There needs to be a shift of focus from managing cost to impacting business performance

Prove the workplace is supporting the needs of the workforce, fostering the behaviors organizations want modeled and having an impact on business outcomes vs costs. This isn’t just about workplace data; it’s about combining data from across the business and being able to correlate it to workplace behaviors and services. Technology can help us baseline, measure, test and iterate.

• Are teams that spend more time doing meetings in the office or attend for company events also more likely to have longer tenure or refer candidate to join us?
• Do offices with better lighting or higher air quality have high attendance and/or fewer sick days?
• Are teams that have 100% in person meetings performing better than those that operate hybrid or totally virtual?
• Are people that use the office less more active on virtual services (i.e., chat, videocalls, etc.)?
• Do people than come into the office more often feel connected to the organization than those that don’t?
• Do offices with new renovations or services have higher retention rates and/or happier employees?

We need to shift to a service design mentality where we’re always looking for the friction points in people's day and how we can eliminate them. We need to adopt agile methodologies and technologies that can give us real-time feedback and data insight on trends on that enable us to continuously adjust and then know when we have it right.

7)    Sustainability and workplace impact matter  

Beyond improving employee experience and increasing productivity, people expect that their workplaces to becomes more sustainable. With the realization that we must do something as a collective, doing individual composting or carpooling to reduce our carbon footprint is no longer enough. We now look to our companies to adapt sustainable practices in the workplace. Whether it’s leveraging lighting and occupancy sensors to improve energy efficiency or creating co-working spaces for areas with high concentration of employees to avoid commuting to a distant headquarters.

8)    This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to change  

We will not get this opportunity again. Humans are naturally averse to change but we have proven we can do it successfully. We have a unique opportunity now with clear indications of what people say they want in a new normal. Failing to take this opportunity and sending people back to the same old offices is a recipe for dissatisfaction and, in the current environment, highly likely mass attrition of top talent. But you don’t need to make it perfect on day 1. Forward progress is more important than perfection as employees will likely stick it out if they see your vision and that you’re taking steps towards it. Employees will appreciate being part of the creation of their new home, and likely feel even more ownership by being part of the process.

I’m excited about where we are now and the opportunity we have to fundamentally redefine the way we work. Like the subject of Marshall Goldsmith's book, “What got you here won’t get you there”, I truly believe we have an opportunity right now to change gears. Pandemic aside, we already see the screams from Gen Z that they want something different, and with them about to become the largest part of almost every workforce, those that had not yet decided they needed to pivot, have now the largest catalyst of our lifetimes, to define the new normal.

Out of the (dumpster?) fire, comes the phoenix and the time to start is now.

(credit also to my colleague Laura Fuentes-Dominguez who collaborated on this article with me)