How the Workplace will Adapt in 2021- A Property Manager's View

How the Workplace will Adapt in 2021- A Property Manager’s View

by Carlos Raphael Imperio,

Public Relations Officer, FIRMA, Real Estate Broker & Property Manager

The COVID-19 Pandemic has brought unprecedented changes on how much people worked from home. Almost overnight, white collared workers began to work from bedrooms, kitchen tables, dining halls, makeshift home offices requiring quiet spaces to lessen the risk of getting the virus as community quarantines/lockdowns were mandated by governments. While initially viewed as a stopgap measure, as pandemic dragged on both employers and employees grew accustomed to WFH and now expect a permanent increase in the practice after the pandemic ends. (Morris Davis, 2021)

Prior to the pandemic, exclusive working from home was relatively rare among employees comprising 2.7% in January/February 2020. However, this picture dramatically changed after the March lockdown. The proportion of employees that always worked from home reached levels of around 30% during April-June 2020, gradually declining to 21% in September 2020.

Primarily, the cycle of imposed lockdowns were thought to be temporary as the rollout of vaccines might be accelerated enabling an immediate return to normal. But as months rolled, we have witnessed how the virus mutated into different variants. These variants were inadvertently transmitted through restrained air travel and as of this year 2021, vaccine distribution especially to middle income and third world countries were at a snail’s pace. Here in the Philippines, getting enough doses to enough of the population to rein in the virus will take at least two to five years. (Solomon, 2020)

On April 24, 2021 FIRMA President Nestor Correa guested on an online show hosted by REHUB President Dr. Mary Gaw So on CBRC.Tv. There he discussed how the workplace will adapt in 2021 from the view of a property manager. He discussed the experiences from organizations as they adopted a transition from a fully occupied office space to a skeletal or mixed work from home setup. Some of the points stressed by Mr. Correa were chiefly derived from a study conducted by Dr. Sofia Bajorek, et. al. of the University of Southampton entitled Working from Home under Covid-19 Lockdown: Transition and Tensions- January 2021.

Transition to Working from Home

Organizations were at different stages of technological preparedness when almost everyone were forced working from home as of mid-March 2020. Those who had invested in laptops and virtual collaboration tools experienced fewer immediate practical obstacles to productivity.

Meanwhile, the BPO industry faced challenges on data security and impact to productivity due to either inadequate infrastructure at employees’ homes or lack of supervision. A key transition being witnessed in BPO organizations is the shift from single function operations to multi-functional operations. This means that companies are no longer focusing on having certain locations that specialize in one operation or service function. In addition, many companies are looking to move their operations to low-cost locations to bring down the exposure to risk. Cloud-based work platforms are also being considered by companies. A shift to a standard cloud-based work platform can reduce manual work and lead to work automation, thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of employees (GEP, 2020).

The unusual circumstances of lockdown meant people were often working at home for the first time and adapting without warning. They might be sharing their home-based workspace with others, and so have little privacy, or to be peripatetic, negotiating their use of space around household members’ relative need for quiet.

Experiences of people on how they adapted on the new work from home setup varies. On positive note, people have adapted quickly and worked well from home. Productivity is good as nine in ten workers (88.4%) they got more done or as much done in the office before lockdown. Employees feel they have benefited from flexibility to organize their tasks, and discretion to make decisions about when they do their work from home. Interviewees felt a sense at not commuting, and of financial savings achieved. However, the gain was more of value.

On the other hand, almost one quarter of employees are having challenges with internet connections and Wi-Fi capacity at home. Complaints that Wi-Fi capacity was unreliable peaked among parents now coping with the demands of two generations using it for work and online learning. At the same time, it was noted that people losing their connection during meetings had become normal part of one’s working day, “everybody does accept that.”

While virtual meetings were invaluable in adapting to full-time working from home, they quickly became overused by organizations. A new phenomenon has begun to emerge called the “Zoom Fatigue.” Even the CEO of Zoom Eric Yuan has experienced such, a phenomenon that for some disrupted effective working. (Cutter, 2021) This is a commonly shared reaction to being endlessly on camera after the initial novelty.

Communication was an issue, especially early on when people were adjusting to a new working environment and learning new tools for virtual collaboration. People were missing the water cooler moments and the various unplanned interactions.

Informal interactions were hard to duplicate using digital tools but some organizations facilitated virtual socials as a nod to the importance of staff remaining connected outside of job roles. Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan CEO said: “Attending outdoor meetings and traveling and that in-person conversation was better for spontaneous idea generation." (Williams, 2021)

Adapting the Workspace in 2021

Morgan McGilvray, Santos Knight Frank (SKF) senior director for occupier services and commercial agency said that office vacancy rate this year in Metro Manila could worsen to as much as 15 percent from 10 percent in 2020, which was more than double the 2019 standard vacancy rate of 4 percent. The last time high vacancy rates hit the country was in 2009, but quickly recovered. (Cahiles-Mangkilat, 2021). This is a problem that property managers are facing right now as local firms are downsizing their offices although the large BPOs and multinational firms are expanding. Leasing rates are flattening out. Repurposing the property might be an option, for hospitality asset class.

Will the office culture ever come back? The University of Southampton’s Study asked employees’ preferences after the lockdown. 75% of employees across a broad range of industries want some working from home once things return to normal; 13% would prefer working from home all the time, while 12% do not want to work from home at all. In other words, there is a strong support expressed in this time for hybrid working (which defined as choosing to work in different spaces in a typical week), and for discretion and flexibility to adjust the place and timing of work, suggests an appetite among employees for innovation in job and workspace design. As the virus is still taking toll across parts of the world as of this writing with slow vaccine rollout affecting the economy and of course the workforce, remote working will not be going anywhere in the foreseeable future.

Various strategies are now in force to meet the workplace demands such as some firms created workplace community bubbles allowing their employees to work at the convenience and amenities of employer-owned resorts. The most popular one however is the rise and configuration of co-working spaces to fill the void of centralized offices. To meet social distancing requirements, co-working spaces created buffer zones, reduced capacity and intensified hygienic practices.

Being a property manager requires one’s ability to competently adapt in changing times in order to maximize the owner’s goals. Increasing wealth is one of the primary reasons an owner invests in real estate. With these in mind, it requires that a property manager should be up to date with the latest information and trends to better aid an owner to make a sound financial decision.

To conclude, the following are the possible info that can be inferred by property managers and owners alike in the face of office vacancies:

? Working from home under lockdown has disrupted norms and thinking around the need for office presence.

? Latent demand for permanent flexible working pattern changes has been unlocked. Employers must be ready to meet that demand with well-defined positions on hybrid and flexible working for every job role for the existing workforce and new recruits.

? Return to traditional office (pre-pandemic) might be possible if people’s confidence will come back through herd immunity by vaccination. (Enough people have been vaccinated against a disease and have developed protective antibodies against future infection). (mayoclinic.org, 2021)

? Previous item might not possibly happen altogether in the conceivable future as most people preferred a work from home and reporting to an office setup for some of the days to separate their working and personal lives. At some point when transmission risk goes down, people want to commute somewhere and companies need to provide “de-densified” spaces closer to home. As Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics put it out: “Once they’ve done it, they’re going to want to continue,” Lister said. COVID-19 has eradicated the employer’s skepticism in one fell swoop, proving that remote work works. Lockdowns will end, but this doesn’t signal a return to the traditional office. (Heaslip, 2020)

? Companies around the world have shifted to remote work could lead to "de-urbanization" and decentralization in large population centers.

? Aside from remote work from home, co-working spaces are poised to fill the void of traditional office During the post-pandemic recovery period such facilities have aimed to enable creativity and engagement, as well as enhance continuity planning for businesses, as companies look to reorganize the workforce and cut real estate costs. (Oxford Business Group, 2020)

? Re-configuration of office and co-working spaces should be well-studied by improving air ventilation quality and natural lighting. Work standards and protocols prescribed by the United States Center for Disease Control (US-CDC) and United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) must be followed to high standards.

SOURCES:

1) Morris Davis, Andra Ghent, Jesse Gregory https://voxeu.org/article/work-home-technology-boon , April 2021

2) Solomon, Feliz https://www.wsj.com/.../vaccines-are-coming-but-they-wont..., December 13 2020

3) Parry, J., Young, Z., Bevan, S., Veliziotis, M., Baruch, Y., Beigi, M., Bajorek, Z., Salter, E. and Tochia, C. (2021) Working from Home under COVID-19 lockdown: Transitions and tensions, Work after Lockdown. University of Southampton, https://www.workafterlockdown.uk/, January 2021

4) GEP gep.com, May 2020, https://www.gep.com/.../the-impact-of-covid-19-on-the-bpo...

5) Cutter, Chip, wsj.com, https://www.wsj.com/.../even-the-ceo-of-zoom-says-he-has... , May 4, 2021

6) Williams, Annabelle, businessinsider.com, https://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon... , May 5, 2021

7) Cahiles-Mangkilat, mb.com.ph, https://mb.com.ph/.../skf-forecasts-weaker-ph-property.../ , January 28, 2021

8) mayoclinic.org, https://www.mayoclinic.org/.../herd-immunity.../art-20486808 , May 5, 2021

9) Heaslip, Emily, uschamber.com, https://www.uschamber.com/.../covid-19-reconstructs... , August 14, 2020

10) Oxford Business Group, https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/.../covid-19-and... , October 22, 2020