Is the office dead?

Rarely have I seen such an eloquent chart. It speaks volumes:




So it looks like people are not coming back to "the office". Will the cities be filled with ghostly ruins of old office buildings? Can you imagine the amount of money lost on commercial real estate?

Will telecommuting become permanent?

a reply to: Never Despise

Although numbers in my particular Office are low, out of ~250 , 17 indicated that they might like to spend 2 to 3 days in the Office.

In the last 6 months I've seen at most 8 people in at a time.

Oddly , after spending so much time as all but a one man band, Colleagues coming in kind of rankle me.

Also, given the likely local lockdown here after Christmas I can start watching the Horror Channel on the Network Operations Screens again (12 x 55" screens)

I kind of hope that at least the option to remain working at home is offered. It's especially useful on days like today where everything I had to do was pretty much wrapped up by 10.

a reply to: Never Despise

Let me ask you this, when was the office ever alive?

Man, if the office is the center of your life, you need to start living

a reply to: Zcustosmorum

One of the benefits of am office is that you get paid for being there.

It's easy on a remote-work basis to slip from getting paid for a full day to "getting paid by the task." This will be less money for the worker, who will still have to remain available, waiting for the next task.

And when your office is your home, your home can actually in the long run become an office. Having some separation between living and working spaces is psychologically healthy, even if commuting is a drag.

a reply to: Never Despise

Will the cities be filled with ghostly ruins of old office buildings? Can you imagine the amount of money lost on commercial real estate?

Turn them into free/cheap housing for the homeless?
Or into food forests.

Office building urban farm in Tokyo

a reply to: Never Despise

No..
The office will fill back up when employers see how little work gets done when employees are not supervised.

That and employers will subcontract workers at home. You get this much for this task that is due Friday.

a reply to: Never Despise

Well, the company I work for will be requiring all office employees to return full time on June 1st which would be around 10,000 people. So there's that.

Actually I think the question is "Is high tax and difficult to navigate cities dead?"

Up to 2020 cities like New York, Chicago, and LA had a monopoly on workspace. You put the offices and factories where the people were and able to commute in to work.

But now what's happening is technology is gotten to the point that many office workers don't need to go to the central office anymore. They don't even need to be in the same state anymore. Why do a executive level job in NYC when you can do it in tax free Florida? In your pajamas in the home office?

I'm afraid for the big cities the analogy is similar to being Ma Bell and having the landline monopoly when cell phones became cheap and available. Covid 19 merely accelerated a 10 to 20 year process into 6 months. Future ghost towns is about right.

a reply to: Never Despise

I was talking about this last night with my mother. We have reached the time where the stage is being relighted again. We went from small town country and suburban living, to moving to the big city with the bright lights and the chaos.

People are now running from the bright lights and chaos, back to what they think is as the slow paced, and idyllic life of country living.

Dreams rarely are the same when your eyes are open and you are seeing and thinking clearly, but one thing is obvious, it is that when it cost you more money to go to work, return, get child care, educate your children, and provide them with food and shelter than what you are making, not returning to a job that takes all your time and resources and leaves you progressively in debt, is the only option.

People are "having" to downsize. They are learning that you can sometimes go further with less. We are having to remodel our lives, now we just have to change our attitudes from quantity to quality.

originally posted by: Never Despise
a reply to: Zcustosmorum

One of the benefits of am office is that you get paid for being there.

It's easy on a remote-work basis to slip from getting paid for a full day to "getting paid by the task." This will be less money for the worker, who will still have to remain available, waiting for the next task.

And when your office is your home, your home can actually in the long run become an office. Having some separation between living and working spaces is psychologically healthy, even if commuting is a drag.

An astute observation Mr. Morum. Do you suppose that office work from home will now trend more towards independent contractor status for these folk?

a reply to: TerryMcGuire
I think it will, and I think renumeration will be broadly lower.

Some will return to offices, but it wouldn't surprise me to see less than 50% utilization.

My wife is a exec for a tech company based on West Coast. We are in Chicago. None of her direct reports are in Chicago. My wife's boss is in TN.. which isn't even the corporate headquarters location.

Up until Covid hit, she was going to a corporate office for previous employer. She gets calls from headhunters/recruiters all the time and one thing that always prevented her from going to a tech company is we didn't want to move to West Coast. However, now pretty much every position she has been contacted for is remote or has some flexibility. Current employer didn't bat an eye about her staying in Chicago and working remote.

We've both decided that being able to work remote is a priority now and she is willing to take a pay cut to continue working remotely now. We are hoping we will be able to find our retirement home a little earlier than planned and continue being able to work and maintain our careers while living there some of the year.

I've been pretty much remote for past 5 years and would never go back to an office environment.

The other thing is that this is making people less accepting of liberal tax and spend policies in big cities. It is far easier to just move to lower cost of living areas and not having to put up with an industry being captured by certain cities. Many people put up with some Democrat cities because their careers kind of require it...

Tech companies are finding they can pay less for employees who work remotely. Facebook is saying that people can relocate and work anywhere, however, the salaries are adjusted for cost of living. Which isn't a bad thing. $300k in Silicon Valley ain't sh*t... but you'd live like a king on $200k in many other cities.

Saw an article in WSJ the other day that Goldman Sachs was moving Asset Management division down to Miami, FL. South Florida is becoming Wall Street South with a ton of asset management, PE, and other financial services following the big whig traders down there.

a reply to: Never Despise

Less than 10% of our workers want to return to the office in any capacity, the rest of us are looking to work remotely as our job functions do not require being in the office. I know there are security concerns with workers being off-site, hopefully that gets folks budget to improve their security posture for remote workers. Also it would be nice to get more home office stipends to improve my setup.

a reply to: Edumakated

Every single offer I've had in the last few months has been fully remote, which is amazing. Then again I imagine it will impact pay in some fashion.

a reply to: Never Despise
That is why I have a separate office room in the house I'm building now, that way I can clock out for my day and leave it in the room.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: Never Despise

No..
The office will fill back up when employers see how little work gets done when employees are not supervised.

That and employers will subcontract workers at home. You get this much for this task that is due Friday.

It really depends on the industry and type of employees...

Saw an article a few days ago where CEO of Citibank was lamenting that Wall Street execs working at home (at least in M&A) were more productive than ever; working ridiculous hours 6-7 days a week. CEO was concerned about burnout. Normally, only the analyst (recent college grads) work the 80-100 hour weeks with hours getting more manageable as you get higher up the food chain.

The only thing draining productivity from my perspective is kids being home due to school closings... which is another issue / topic.

People who work in offices always look dead to me.

At least on the inside.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

That could lead to an interesting new facet of the gig economy. Studies have shown that workers are more efficient when they're not tied to the 9-5-5 days/week model.

People could take a number of different contract jobs that require them to complete a certain amount each week and allow them to complete it on their schedule. Of course this assumes there aren't non-compete clauses. It also assumes there's a substitute for things one normally needs from a full-time job (ie health insurance.)

It would let people pick the level of wealth they wish to achieve vs. amount of work they're willing to do and potentially give companies a more efficient work force.

a reply to: Bluntone22

As someone that’s worked IT for a while, most in the office are spending ridiculous amounts of time doing the same thing they would do at home...surf the internet. I think doing away with office buildings wouldn’t change the rate of work being done but would eliminate a lot of the wasted time I’ve seen in the workforce. If anything I think it shows just how little some positions are required to do and will probably be a huge job killer if we don’t get back to the offices soon.

originally posted by: Hypntick
a reply to: Never Despise

Less than 10% of our workers want to return to the office in any capacity, the rest of us are looking to work remotely as our job functions do not require being in the office. I know there are security concerns with workers being off-site, hopefully that gets folks budget to improve their security posture for remote workers. Also it would be nice to get more home office stipends to improve my setup.

a reply to: Edumakated

Every single offer I've had in the last few months has been fully remote, which is amazing. Then again I imagine it will impact pay in some fashion.

a reply to: Never Despise
That is why I have a separate office room in the house I'm building now, that way I can clock out for my day and leave it in the room.

The hottest trend in housing now is office space... his and her offices. Space requirements are driving a boom in suburban houses. It is hard for two people to work from home in a typical 2 bed / 2 bath condo you find in most cities. Working a full day at your breakfast bar or living room isn't ideal.

Our house is small. HOwever, I have a "man cave" that is my office. I have a nice desk 43inch ultra wide monitor. Herman Miller Chair. also have a couch and 49 flat screen TV. Really cozy and comfortable setup. My wife put a desk / char in our bedroom. We will be getting our basement redone and likley build out an elaborate office setup down there for her assuming we just don't move first...