It’s almost been too long since I talked about changes in work, so what better time than when the big wigs at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, bring it up? And this time, it’s coming from the real estate executives themselves. Many buildings are “obsolete” and ready for the wrecking ball, said the executives, including Christian Ulbrich, CEO of JLL, and Ivanhoe Cambridge CEO Nathalie Palladitcheff. The message – it’s time to face harsher reality.
DC Mayor Bowser didn’t get the memo, as during her inaugural address called out the federal government specifically, sending a clear message: Get your employees back to in-person work — or else vacate your lifeless downtown office buildings so we can fill the city with people again. I’m referencing Politico for that one. Over on the tech side of things, TikTok is also trying to crack down on remote work. The Information reported that the company is telling some US workers that they could lose their job if they don’t show that their home address matches their assigned office location.
Because there is data on how much time those workers got back – an average of 72 minutes a day, per a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. That’s worldwide, and it’s 55 minutes in the US. It turns out most of those workers….. worked more, with 40% using the time on either a primary or secondary job, with 34% using the time for leisure. That same Axios article I pulled this from also notes how even the municipal bond market is being reshaped over remote work.
It would be easy to call Mayor Bowser out… yet ultimately, what she and the real estate executives are saying is the same. We need to repurpose those office buildings. That’s the real solution… because people aren’t coming back. Why? Those 55 minutes.
So why do we care? The players in long-term control of the assets are building plans that assume a new world order. You should be doing the same.