Commercial Real Estate Is All About People
November 05, 2014
Sometimes, commercial real estate appears to be all about bricks and mortar, cash flows and cap rates. Of course, those things are important. But the real success for our clients comes from placing the emphasis on the people in the buildings. Considering how people work today and how it affects commercial real estate decisions is the best way to enhance your bottom line.
One of the topics I write about regularly are trends affecting the 21st century workplace. Here are four trends in how and where people work, and thus have an impact on commercial real estate needs.
1) The demise of the conference room. Instead of a formal conference room, there are meeting spaces that range from formal to informal. The emphasis today is on brainstorming and focusing on solutions that draw upon the strengths of the group, instead of hierarchal meetings that produced few results.
2) Americans work longer hours than ever before. We lead the world in hours worked and take fewer vacation days, too. Thanks to technology, American workers spend seven hours a week responding to email and phone calls outside of a formal work environment.
3) Given that Americans spend more time working than ever, creating an appealing workspace is extremely important to attract and retain the most talented workers. Workspaces today can be on a huge corporate campus, an office tower, a client’s office, or the local Starbucks. Just as technology has expanded the time workers are performing work related tasks, it has also expanded the places work can be performed.
4) Increased flexibility in the workspace enhances productivity. The former rigid infrastructure did little to foster creativity or collaboration, two of the most important characteristics of today’s successful work environment. The 24/7 nature of work now requires that workers can easily access and share they are working on, whether they are in the office or working from home. The old-fashioned (and counterproductive) filing cabinet has been replaced with the cloud.
So, what does all of this mean for commercial real estate decision making? Understanding how all of these factors affect workers and their productivity, it is possible to make real estate decisions that will save your company money while creating a happier, more engaged work force.
If embracing these trends means that it’s time to reconfigure your workspace, Bayshore Partners is here to guide you through the decision process.
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