“Most of the client meetings, kick-offs, project meetings could easily and effectively be conducted via tools like Teams, WebEx, Zoom and other virtual meeting solutions,” says Gagan Lamba in San Francisco. “Soon enough corporations will recognise the benefit of people working from home, which would result in savings on lease cost, electric bills, shipment cost, administrative cost.”
But some fear losing vital communication skills, or wonder whether they will be as effective or successful professionally as they would be at an office. “I fear we will forget how to communicate, which in my field as a salesperson makes me very nervous,” says Ben Brown from England. “Face-to-face interaction is vital in order to win new business and build a relationship with the customer where they can trust you.”
On the flip side, telework could potentially open up more opportunities. “Everyone who has talent and skills will learn that they can market their talent to the whole world,” says Juliana Carroll in New York. “Everyone who takes their everyday skills for granted will realise that someone will pay for that skill and/or for their time. Every responsible college student will realise that someone will pay for their time to help with children's homework. Every bilingual person will realise that someone will pay for their time to practice another language… It's just a matter of finding the right virtual marketplace.”
But others worry about possible drawbacks to long-term remote working. “On the flip side, it opens up unanswered questions: What is my career growth path? How do I collaborate on new ideas? How do I build a trusted relationship with a customer? How do I engage my team? Is this fair to people with small kids? What are the implications on taxes?” asks Pankaj Goyal, also in San Francisco.
And where does all this leave office buildings? In May, office and retail landlord Land Securities reported that a mere 10% of its office space in the UK was in use. Meanwhile, real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield forecasts that Covid’s hit on the office real estate market will be worse than the global financial crisis, with a net loss of 95 million square feet of real estate in the next year – and that the market might not get back to pre-Covid levels until 2025.
“How is commercial real estate adapting to the post-Covid world?” asks Lisa Hoffman from Virginia. “Is there a shift away from typical tenants to a different tenant or a new space use? How will these changes impact the urban environment, especially downtown hubs that rely on dense office real estate?”
Plus, with the meteoric rise of telework, some are wondering if people will soon be paid based on where they live. One survey this summer of high earners in New York City revealed that 44% of them had thought of moving in the last four months to telework somewhere cheaper to live.
Eric Luna in New York says: “People would do the exact same job but be paid differently because of their home or residential location. Some say this will happen. I personally believe something like it will. Is this avoidable or inevitable?”
Of course, some offices will stay put in their current spot – after all, research in July from Gensler, an architecture firm in San Francisco, found that only 12% of workers want to work from home permanently. “I do not believe that we will find a one-size-fits-all solution,” says Thibault Pelloux-Gervais in California. “I am still convinced that in-person activity is essential to build team spirit, which drives collaboration and innovation. A hybrid model where you would spend some time working from home and some time from an office could become a very common model.”
The Link LonkOctober 30, 2020 at 03:31AM
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