What’s Really Got Property Managers up at Night?

What’s really got property managers up at night? Well, COVID-19 safety practices, for sure. Hand sanitizing stations, social distancing signage, and spacing out of furniture become significant lifts at scale. But what else? What about the very real question of whether or not employees are going to come back to the office at all! What about leases 2, 5, or 8 years down the road? While less than 4% of the U.S. workforce was remote before COVID-19, some experts now believe that upward of 25% of employees will stay remote once the pandemic is over! That means a significant number of workers won’t be coming back to the office at all when things get back to the way they were pre-pandemic. And with the “hurry up and wait” timeline we’re experiencing, that alone could be a very long time in and of itself. Along these lines, I recently sent an email out to some of my property management connections to get their answer to the following question and want to share those with you:

How are you navigating office re-openings when not all tenant's employees are coming back?

First, start planning way sooner than you think. None of us know how long this will go on, but it is imperative to have a plan in place when the time does come for reentry. Second, every situation needs to be looked at individually. There is not a one size fits all answer when it comes to this. Some have found that working from home is working quite well and can be embraced for the long term, whereas many have found productivity is down and their employees cannot wait to get back – and then everything in between. Third, listen to your employees. A survey of your employees can be a great initial first step. It is imperative to understand how this is affecting them both professionally and personally. Those initial responses can be critical to how you build the strategic plan on safely welcoming employees back to the office when the time is right. 

- Scott Wingrat, Principal, CRESA

At Kenwood, we are generally seeing between 20-40% of tenant employees who have returned to work. Even though we are operating at less than normal capacity, we have enhanced cleaning services by adding full time day cleaning of all high touch surfaces, scheduled regular proactive electrostatic cleaning, increased HVAC filter changes, replaced all restroom and tenant kitchen faucets and soap dispensers to handsfree devices, and posted new safety signage throughout the properties. Our belief is that even at reduced tenant usage, we still want our tenants to feel safe and comfortable in our properties.

- Bill Singer, Principal, Kenwood Management

My medical buildings are unique in that they never shut down because medical is considered essential. Dentists did close initially but all of my other specialties remained open; you still need allergy shots, OB visits and cholesterol checks! Our biggest challenge is elevator logistics because I’m down one of three elevators due to our mod project. I have a guard posted at the elevator bank to assist and we have dedicated stairwells for up/down travel.

- Liza Thelemann, RPA, Senior Property Manager, RMR Real Estate Services

How are we managing COVID in our buildings? I am working on retail and residential projects. We have dealt with a bunch of issues on our Charlotte project – workers, property management, residents. On the retail projects, we dealt/are dealing with rent relief and logistics for managing tenant needs for curbside pick-up and reopening in light of current regulations. With rent relief we needed to have them document the sales. We also took turns visiting the food tenants during lunch and dinner hours.

 - David Lazas, Development Director, Atapco Properties

What’s got you up at night when it comes to office re-openings? Post your thoughts below!