Have any of you guys returned to the office?
Interested to see how many firms are back to in-person. I’m in GA but remote rn. Seeing the trends that are happening could be much longer.
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Major NE city here. Management has gone mute in regards to expected return date. Office is open and may be 10/200 people are in there everyday the week. My guess is late fall 2021 for “normalcy”.
Based in a major gateway city. Management has said the earliest return to the office is possibly June/July. However, judging by the reticent tone when that message was conveyed, I can tell that we won’t be at full occupancy in 2021 at all.
I’ve been back since June
Back since early may
Been back since late may, but then again we are primarily involved in office investing...
Corporate said rent is a waste of money. Our lease was expiring in September. They decided not to renew. No idea when we are going back to a physical office presence. My understanding is that this could last for quite some time, maybe we get a space in 2022. The reality is half our team is on the road most of the time anyways so now people are thinking if it even makes sense to pay for a space.
That doesn't sound fun. Are you looking forward to that long of a wait?
Its okay. I dont mind. The funny thing is we were about to go under agreement to lease an awesome office space connected to a brewery. It was part of a new development. People here are talking about how covid wont make a huge impact long-term but honestly, we were going to get a large space and now there is talks if we ever get an office, it will be significantly smaller, like enough to the point where people should only come in if they need to. If you're a large corporate, my understanding is people are going to use Covid as a beta test to see if it makes sense going WFH permanently will stick. They'll look at productivity levels. The rent expense line item is very large when you look at it for lots of companies.
If half of your team is on the road most of the time and you think that is the reason to not have an office or smaller office, why does it take a pandemic for your management to realize that? Reason I'm saying this is I'm a full believer of human behavior of overacting and then reverting back in a while. Just like this WHF buzz.
Humans are far less rational than we’d like to think, most of this world is running on momentum and people are creatures of habit.
Also funny to realize it took 6 months to develop a vaccine when the precious fucking economy was at risk....there’s no longer an excuse to have so many unresolved health issues in our civilization. When you make human life a priority good things happen. Shocker.
In lieu of people just focusing and doing what works in the first place, disasters often speed up change.
Its always good to have some sort of physical presence. Also its a little bit tough to let the junior guys WFH. Corporate probably though productivity levels would be lower, but covid has proven that wrong. Everyone is still getting things done. An office is also a place to bring clients, but the truth is nobody really thought WFH would work permanently. Yes many companies will come back to a physical office after this is over, but there will also be many that will decide they no longer need an office.
In a major west coast city, no official return date set yet. I'm assuming sometime in the late spring or early summer. Management has hinted at possibly having people return to the office 1-2 days per week after the start of the year and then seeing how things go from there.
West coast here. Returned to the office once a week after Labor Day but this week, we're back to being fully remote until further notice. Kinda bummed, honestly. I didn't expect to miss being around my coworkers while we were WFH..
Been back since may, with. Few brief closures for cleaning.
100% remote and loving it. I never want to go back to the office. Maybe once or twice a month to go in and shake hands but that’s it.
Only people in the building are a handful of execs and some of the IT infrastructure guys. We probably won’t ever go back to fully on site. They’re going to save a fortune in rent and we’re happy to work 10-20 hours a week because we don’t have to commute.
Shake hands? So brave. We’re still in the elbow tap phase at my office
Oh I mean when the covid thing is over, I’m not going in at all now. For now, yeah, elbow taps
Same here, I’m unabashedly pro-WFH and would do it permanently if given the option. My quality of life is so much better with no commute to the office and more down time during the day. Just less stress in general.
And the fact that you don't have to spend an hour getting ready in the morning is such a burden off of each day
Work out of Boston at large AM firm and we aren’t planning to go back formally until Q4 2020. Pilot programs for returning had been set up but were scraped as cases spiked a second/third time
Working for a big developer in NYC. We went back since July by shifting, 2-3 days per week in the office. I heard Related went back in June. Landlords and developers are crazy smh.
Well it’s in landlords’ and developers’ best interest to demonstrate to their tenants that it is “safe” to go back to the office. SL Green is one example of a company offering incentives like a travel stipend, free lunch, and free child care for employees to come into the office. However, I still don’t think it’s safe. Cases are surging again. I wish landlords and developers would think of their employees first instead of their public image. To risk your employees’ health just isn’t worth it.
Completely agreed. Tbh it’s frustrating in an employee’s eyes. Also the daily new cases increase is surging in NYC, but my company decided to increase one more day in the office for everyone starting in December. That is to say instead of 2-3 days per week in the office, everyone has to come 3 days per week. No benefits at all to do that.
Would any of y’all be ok with 100% wfh? I’d 100% do it even if there’s a 10% cut in pay. I’d move to FL, buy a 4 br house with a pool and live like a king.
Wfh is amazing. Once you do it you don’t wanna go back. I know this is the antithesis of all (except industrial guys) of our livelihood but man. Life quality is so much better.
Absolutely yes and I’ve had that conversation with my boss. She agrees and feels exactly the same way.
100%. I’m trying to save up some money but #1 I’d want to move into a nicer place and have a dedicated office instead of working out of my bedroom. Having an office that I can “leave” at the end of the day is great. Having a gym close by or in the same building is too, and at that point I would not be missing anything at all over the office.
Agree, but productivity def can take a hit if you have everyone WFH
Without question
Not so sure about that. If you hired quality candidates with great work ethics, they’re hard working whether they work in the office or at home. Collaboration takes a hit but with Zoom and Team I feel like we can get to 95% of office collaboration. You sacrifice that 5% of real life interaction bit for 1-2 extra hour of no-commute a day...
May be I’m biased but I have 100% trust that our analysts and other folks on the team are working harder they would be in the office, and that productivity is the same if not better. Personally, I found myself to be working more during COVID. I do 8:30-6, have dinner then work post dinner someday until 11p when we're busy. Pre covid, I go home, may be answer some emails on phone but was pretty much logged off from computer. Now that I'm "in" my office 24/7, I feel that you're expected to be doing stuff on your computer all day long...which is fine, since I thankfully like what I do, don't have kids and wouldn't want to be doing anything else hah. Summer was chill af, world was halted and I was just hanging with interns virtually all day pretty much...
This is all terrible for CRE in general, but that’s just reality of where the world is heading, I think?...
By the way, check this out. https://spatial.io/
This might be the death of some offices. I don't think offices are gone for good, but some back office jobs might be....Feel free to throw MS, but I feel like had someone posted uber / airbnb back in 2009, they would've gotten the same reaction from people. This is like so primitive - Imagine, once the Spatial (or others) start to have VR technology figured out....
We've been back in the office full-time since June. Definitely found that I've been more productive there, but I didn't mind WFH that much.
At this point, I think a hybrid structure would be ideal - 1-2 days a week WFH and the rest in the office.
2-3 days a week, NYC. My thoughts are that if you are in a stagnant role, or in a role with a 3-5 years experience before promotion, then you can WFH. If you are looking for a promotion, you should be back in the office.
Mid Atlantic, about a third are back in the office but most of the people I work with only go back in 1-2 times a week, except one psycho that goes in on Friday also
Based in NYC. Not back, but have some colleagues at banks/debt funds/repe partially back (week on / week off, or some rotating schedule, etc.). I know a couple of larger groups that already stated aiming for mid 2021 back to the office.
Have a couple of colleagues at major LLs (RXR, SL green etc)... these guys have been back for a while... leading by example I suppose...
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