As the COVID-19 situation presents us with new developments and challenges day-by-day, office buildings around the world are steadily becoming emptier over the past weeks. While the entire Locateam is now working fully remotely, we have received great feedback from our customers on how they rely on Locatee to make critical and potentially life-saving decisions. These messages have been heartening reminders of our mission and purpose here at Locatee, and I would like to share with you two such examples: 

• Pandemic task forces are using space utilisation data to plan and ensure the shift towards home office
• Facility management teams are informing canteens of how many people to expect for lunch and advising their employees when to go eat so as to avoid crowding

Despite the difficult current situation, I believe that the role of office buildings, and by extension, Corporate Real Estate Management functions, are more important than ever during this time and once we emerge from the global crisis and enter a new normalcy. I see two main reasons for this:

We gain a deeper understanding of flexible work

For many knowledge workers, the office building was the only place to get work done before all of this. Currently, we are witnessing the world’s largest remote working experiment. Companies are investing heavily in enabling their employees to work from home and keeping operations as smooth as possible. Once we are through this, every desk worker will be more experienced and adept when it comes to flexible or remote working. This will have tremendous impacts on the world of work. 

Office buildings take on a new significance

Despite pushing the frontiers and boundaries of what we can achieve working from home, we will no doubt also understand its limitations. We will learn what we can and cannot achieve with our lack of physical presence. Yes, we can hold virtual coffee meetings, but this will not displace face-to-face discussions. In the absence of a physical office, we will realise and recognise its value and importance in engendering a collaborative and productive workforce. 

Our good friends and the co-authors of our white paper (Navigating the Complex Smart Building Landscape) Memoori have written a great piece delving deeper into the topic. If you want to learn more on this, I recommend checking out their article here.

How do you see it? What will the impact of the current situation be on the office or the corporate real estate landscape in the mid- to long-run? I and the entire Locateam look forward to hearing your thoughts; in the meantime, please stay safe and healthy.