REAL ESTATE NEWS

Commercial office operators are weighing in on how to engage in today's climate, from restructuring their footprint to requiring employees to return to in-person work.

This comes from the point of view of a few panelists at CREtech New York 2025, which was moderated by Ryan Simonetti, CEO and Co-Founder of Convene. David Kamen, head of global workplace, real estate, operations and facility management at The Cigna Group, Frederico Egli, head of U.S. real estate at IBM, Sajit Sankar, vice president of global real estate services at Mastercard and Nishar Fatema, involved with ServiceNow's global strategy, innovation & transformation management, were the speakers.

When asked about how many enforce some kind of RTO mandate, three of the four panelists raised their hands.

Weighing Office Utilization and ROI

A lot of them work for companies that impose some form of hybrid. Kamen's firm is one of them — but he brings up one flaw. Not only aren't employees coming into the office full-time under hybrids — but many don't work 9-5 any longer.

"I see them coming in at nine or 10 a.m. and leaving at three o'clock or so in the afternoon," Kamen recalled a recent conversation he had with an office occupier. "So that organization was losing three or four hours at least [each day] for the employee."

If that happens frequently, the question becomes, is it even worth it to have people in the office to begin with? It brings up an interesting debate.

"CMOS will say spend less money on real estate. The Chief Human Resource Officer would say we want our people back to enhance, protect or create a better culture."

Everything must be weighed, from return on investment to offering the best workplace experience to maximize productivity, according to Kamen.

Consolidating Office Space

That leads to a point brought up by Egli, who is considering consolidating office space for IBM. For example, if you operate six offices, maybe you would just operate at three instead. And in some cases, Egli is looking to add new office space where it sees a fit for employees.

Then the question becomes, where do you keep, add and eliminate your office space? Identifying those key hubs is key, according to Egli.

"Just because we have employees in the location, we [don’t] necessarily [need] an office there," he added.

"The office needs to have a purpose."

Amenities Are Key

That purpose may be business or amenity-related, according to Egli. Moreover, Fatema delved deeper into office amenities, highlighting the shifting workplace experience since the pandemic. Particularly, Class A, trophy and high-quality property types continue to show the most resilience in the post-pandemic world.

"It is not just a traditional work and meeting room kind of space. We have multi-functional rooms; almost a quarter of the space is just traditional," she said of a New York office the company operates in.

Plus, the "innovation center is a big part of it," Fatema added.

When making decisions, oftentimes artificial intelligence comes into play. For example, Fatema said that ServiceNow uses this to collect data on the space utilization, WiFi usage, portfolio size and leasing.

Source: GlobeSt/ALM