{"id":4420,"date":"2020-10-12T23:02:27","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T23:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/melvinmarkcompanies.com\/?p=4420"},"modified":"2026-03-31T16:25:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:25:57","slug":"the-future-of-the-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melvinmarkcompanies.com\/the-future-of-the-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of the Workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we continue to adapt to a new work-life balance during the global pandemic, many of our clients, friends, and colleagues have reached out to hear our thoughts on the office environment of the future. Will we see: a continued work-from-home dynamic after the risks of COVID-19 are behind us? A shift in the interest of office space? Work schedules that become more flexible? It\u2019s hard to know the future of the workplace and our team has turned to the experts, delving into studies, articles, and opinions over the past six months. Here, we want to share our perspective and thoughts as we look to this next chapter.<\/p>\n<h2>Productivity<\/h2>\n<p>The workplace environment has a direct effect on productivity. While some individuals may work better remotely, many thrive with the ability to work amongst others. Recently, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vocon.com\/productivity-drops-as-work-from-home-fatigue-sets-in-survey-of-employers-finds\/\">Vocon<\/a> conducted a survey of 50 businesses in industries including architecture, engineering, design, advertising, finance, and more. According to the survey, remote productivity dropped by 40 percent since the start of the pandemic. In addition, 25 percent of employees reported work-from-home fatigue. This fatigue could stem from things like homeschooling children, videoconferencing overload, or even just a feeling of isolation.<\/p>\n<p>JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. recently released a study that showed productivity has slipped for their employees as well. They noted \u201cremote work is no substitute for organic interaction\u201d as part of why they are urging workers to return to offices. As of September 21<sup>st<\/sup>, the company required senior sales and trading employees to return to their office workspaces. Many businesses have reopened their offices, and a small portion of employees have returned to their workspace. However, most aren\u2019t planning to do so until at least the first quarter of 2021.<\/p>\n<h2>Office Footprints<\/h2>\n<p>Office space has always been an important factor for businesses. But COVID-19 has forced many to reassess their needs. Four larger companies &#8211; Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft &#8211; have all made moves in favor of increasing their office footprints.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon plans to expand its offices in six major cities. This includes Bellevue, WA, where it recently leased 2 million square feet of space and plans to add 10,000 more jobs to the area in the next several years. Likewise, Facebook recently leased 730,000 SF of space in Midtown Manhattan. This added to its existing 2.2 million SF of space. Microsoft recently invested in more than half a million square feet of new office space in Atlanta\u2019s West Midtown submarket. Finally, Google revealed detailed plans for a major investment in San Jose, California. The investment includes up to 7.3 million square feet of gross commercial office, up to 5,900 residential units, 10 parks, and 500,000 square feet of retail, restaurants, community service, and entertainment space. The company delayed the decision at the start of the COVD-19 outbreak but resubmitted their application in early October.<\/p>\n<p>The choice to expand their square footage is interesting. All four companies have given their employees the option to work from home through at least January 2021. Perhaps these moves could indicate a return to the pre-pandemic style of working in the future or a shift towards increased social distancing. Every company has a different culture and office layout to match the company. As everyone reassesses the way they do business, we expect office configurations to evolve accordingly.<\/p>\n<h2>Office Configuration<\/h2>\n<p>The past decade saw a significant shift towards dense office configurations. Shared workstations that can be used by any member of a team, large work benches, and small open cubes decreased the average square foot per employee. Nationally, according to Cushman &amp; Wakefield, the average square foot per employee dropped to 194 in 2019. This number is down over 8% in 10 years. In some <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.naiop.org\/2018\/05\/top-trends-and-metrics-to-watch-in-u-s-office-space\/\">larger markets<\/a>, the average was less than 135 square feet per employee. This was coupled with a significant increase in shared common areas. Kitchens and gyms or fitness areas with showers and lockers became more common. With an impetus for personal workspaces, larger workstations, safe, socially distanced meeting and shared spaces, and even access to outdoor space, we expect this trend to reverse itself.<\/p>\n<p>Design and planning firm <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gensler.com\/research-insight\/blog\/what-data-tells-us-about-social-distancing-in-the-workplace?utm_source=dialogue-now-email_2020_sept10&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=dialogue-now&amp;utm_content=master-list\">Gensler<\/a> has been providing some of the best research on COVID-19 workplace responses. Their studies show that the overwhelming majority of people want to return to the office. Only 12% of U.S. workers want to work from home full-time, and people do not expect to return to the same workplace. In one survey, employees viewed stricter policies against coming in sick, an increase in opportunities to work from home, and office cleaning as important to making them feel comfortable returning to the office:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-4423 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/melvinmarkcompanies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/chart-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/melvinmarkcompanies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/chart-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/melvinmarkcompanies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/chart-512x288.jpg 512w, https:\/\/melvinmarkcompanies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/chart-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/melvinmarkcompanies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/chart-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/melvinmarkcompanies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/chart.jpg 1429w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>No company will address these issues in the same manner. However, we expect to see evolutions such as an increase in technology spending. We assume many businesses will invest in tools that provide employees with the ability to work remotely. In addition, video conferencing that allows employees to interface from many different places at the same time will likely increase. We also expect to see users reconsider their space. In some specific cases, companies will completely reconsider the way they utilize their offices and interface with their employees in a post-pandemic world.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>There is a lot of conjecture in what will come next and we do not pretend to know what will happen between now and when \u201cnormal\u201d business resumes. However, based on research and experience, we feel strongly that most employees and employers desire a productive, safe place to work and communicate and cross-pollinate with their co-workers and clients in person. Our team is here to assist in evaluating the opportunities and options. Please feel free to reach out to Peter Andrews with any questions via <a href=\"mailto:pandrews@melvinmark.com\">pandrews@melvinmark.com<\/a> or 503.546.4522.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we continue to adapt to a new work-life balance during the global pandemic, many of our clients, friends, and &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":4428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Future of the Workplace - Melvin Mark<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/melvinmarkcompanies.com\/the-future-of-the-workplace\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Future of the Workplace - 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