3

Enterprise and Office: The Odd Couple?

Every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

Edmund Burke

One of the overriding challenges of my 30-year career, apart from attempting to broaden the view of the commercial property industry, has been to enable business leaders and the C-Suite to see the ‘Missing Link’ – to make that all-important connection between how an effective office can add value to their organization and transform their enterprise for the twenty-first century. Historically, such a link has not been fully recognized or appreciated because it has never been needed, but times and demands have changed and it has created this imperative.

In my experience this all boils down to perceptions and relationships, both on the part of business leaders, who for the most part are the consumers of commercial property and the various elements of the property world described in the previous chapter in all their fragmented and dysfunctional glory. Since those who run organizations pay the rent, understandably, they see themselves as the clients, despite the fact that the real estate industry regards their principal and most important clients as property or investment companies. Naturally, as consumers, they ask the question, ‘Why don’t providers of these office blocks understand the demands of the people who use them?’ Yet both parties in the equation need each other: the property world needs someone to pay rent and those in business need roofs over their heads to carry out their operations. This mutual dependence makes for a trying and testing relationship and is broadly the same all over the world. Since dealings between these two players are generally adversarial, lacking in trust and with little understanding between them, moreover this is not helped by the explosion of intermediaries who are also involved in the mix.

Looking at these incommodious bedfellows often reminds me of one of the great ABC TV sitcoms from the 1970s, The Odd Couple – a spin-off of the equally brilliant Neil Simon film starring Jack Lemmon as the obsessive neat-freak Felix opposite Walter Matthau, the party-and-poker-loving slob Oscar. These two seemingly incompatible, clashing characters end up sharing a small apartment in New York, providing endless hours of superb comedy as they irritate and annoy each other with their different lifestyles, while trying to find ways to co-exist within a confined space.

The storyline mirrors the real-life interaction between how commercial real estate, the enterprise and its consumers relate to one another. Additionally, it is also a fair representation of how management currently views its office portfolio. They are there to operate a profitable business, but those in the ‘office sector’ speak a different language – they are difficult to communicate with and not very easy to understand; also, not particularly customer-friendly. Moreover, the sector is expensive to run and cuts into profit margins. Like ‘fussy Felix’, the occupier/enterprise and ‘disorganized Oscar’, representing the fragmented property sector, they are mutually dependent on one another and have to co-habit in the same environment, usually with minimal trust, limited co-operation and lack of awareness.

These disparate Felix/Oscar sections have to find a rapprochement because both face a barrage of obstacles battering them at every turn. It is imperative that they understand and address these issues soon since the domino effect of twenty-first-century disruption encompasses both in a number of fundamental ways. In order for the enterprise to succeed and continue making profits, this problematic ‘Odd Couple’ have no option but to join forces to overcome these considerable challenges.

The Onslaught of Disruptive Forces Impacting the Enterprise, the Office and Society

When it comes to business, the certainties and rules of the past are no longer applicable and company chiefs are finding it very difficult to lead their enterprises by extrapolating from past experience in a world which is no longer controllable and is undergoing such dramatic social change. To paraphrase Charles Handy’s assertion in his book The Second Curve, society and by extension business is not working as it should. People are increasingly questioning the inequality fuelled by corporations just satisfying profit margins and shareholders. In other words, ‘the few’ over the fairer distribution and creation of wealth for all.

Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset management corporations, underlines this notion with the statement, ‘Companies, investors, and governments must prepare for a significant reallocation of capital.’ Slowly, we are all becoming more aware of rampant consumerism, the effects of the ‘throwaway’ society and its impact on our valuable resources and the way uncontrolled debt affects lives, our communities and even our countries. We are now entering the age of accountability and responsibility in both business and society and the property industry has to respond to the demands of this new era.

A corporation’s real estate is now a vital physical manifestation of its worldwide standing: it reflects its strategy, reputation and brand, it is an effective indicator of an organization’s competitive advantage, performance and its profitability, as well as its power to attract and retain the best people. At this juncture it is imperative that business leaders and managers master the opportunities and solutions presented to them by one of their largest and most important organizational assets.

The Value Chain: Linking Mindsets between Business Leaders and Real Estate

In the past management has been more reactive in managing the office as a profit/loss expense. However, business chiefs now have to take a more strategic and proactive perspective to be able to deal with the whirlwind of changes coming their way as well as making them better equipped to carry out the transformation to a more agile organization by optimizing the use of the built environment. This also gives the property industry an opportunity to step up to the mark, not only through bringing about innovation, but also by demonstrating the potential of dynamic and effective real estate management. This extends to both real estate tribes: the mainstream, which focuses on selling and leasing, as well as the internal side of CRE and FM. For many years the latter have been clamouring for the attention of the executive board and, in fact, some even go as far as wanting a seat at the table! Notwithstanding their ambitions, gaining C-Suite attention will give them a strategic business angle to prove their contribution in the organizational value chain.

The Relentless and Constant Change of the VUCA World

We ignore the perils of this unprecedented and unparalleled climate of volatility, uncertainty, change and ambiguity (often shortened by economists to the acronym VUCA) at our peril. Especially the disruptive and transformative impact of what is defined as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which I see as a misnomer as I feel we are still in the midst of the initial surge of the First Digital Revolution, with more radical changes coming our way as the effects of technology gain an increasing stranglehold in our lives. Covid-19 only adds fuel to the fire.

As Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum noted: ‘We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.’

The current industrial or digital revolution is transforming entire systems in manufacturing, management and administration all at the same time, creating exponential rather than linear change. The internet has revolutionized our lives beyond measure in every aspect by linking billions of people worldwide, enabling all of us to be interconnected wherever we are, to manage everyday tasks in a few clicks or swipes and to share information and knowledge in an instant – and this is just the beginning of harnessing its enormous power.

Undoubtedly, it is not just technology, but many other factors at the macro level which are affecting enterprises, both private and public, all over the world and drives the impetus of why business leaders must sit up and take notice. At this point it is crucial that the ‘Odd Couple’ property and business world adjust their thinking and the way they view each other. As well as finding more complementary and purposeful ways to co-operate in order to survive, prosper and be more profitable.

The In-House Storm Brewing for Business Leaders

Despite the on-going march of the digital revolution and ensuing disruption in all sectors, there are still legacies from the twentieth century hanging around like a millstone in the twenty-first-century workplace. First, business leaders have to think the unthinkable and consider that the traditional Monday to Friday, 9–5 working day has had its day, but more importantly, the Taylorist approach to working is now obsolete.

This harks back to the early 1900s when American engineer Frederick Taylor pioneered office design akin to a factory production line. Office workers were packed into a large open central area, with their bosses observing from on high in private offices. However, this set-up suited the office work and hierarchical society of the early- to mid-twentieth century, which centred on repetitive tasks, paper processing and later on with typing pools, office memos, filing cabinets, etc. However, as a consequence of digitalization, the emphasis is now shifting away from merely processing – which is now undergoing automation – to one focusing on creativity, problem solving and collaboration. This means that traditional white-collar work is falling off the cliff, just as blue-collar work did since the 1980s, as the paper-pushing twentieth-century office drone is being forced out by the agile knowledge workers of the twenty-first-century digital revolution.

The Shift from Twentieth-century Stability to Twenty-first-century Agility

All in all, a combination of disruptive elements have upended the familiar characteristics which typified twentieth-century values: stability, conformity, mass-production, while the twenty-first century’s mantra is constant change and customization. One of the best analogies is buses and taxis, and nowadays, we can add Uber to the transport mix. Buses are typical of many twentieth-century business models – they have a fixed route to a prescribed timetable and passengers are satisfied as long as they come on time. There is very little flexibility in the system, offering customers a limited, set and impersonal service, which does not veer even if the roads are jammed, but it is cheap and universal.

Taxis, on the other hand, aim to get their passengers to their destination in the quickest way possible, but at a premium price. They are adaptable to road conditions and customer demands, plus if you’re lucky you can get a wealth of information and tips from the driver, with opinions on anything under the sun.

The arrival of Uber and others brought twenty-first-century customization to public transport, generally at lower fares than taxis; the convenience of ordering a cab on an app to pick you up on demand which you can track and the bonus of it being cashless, as payment is done automatically online. Uber cars range from budget to luxury and you can even ask for complete silence with no chatty driver! The business model is completely flexible and customer-focused to the extent that it now offers boats, helicopters and some other forms of transportation in some cities, as well as branching out to food delivery. This typically exemplifies the shift to agility, as well as showing how the gig economy is incorporated into an organization’s structure, which naturally lends itself to a more agile workplace.

Uber is a prime example of the ‘Shamrock Organization’ as defined by Charles Handy in his 1989 book, The Age of Unreason. He describes these three-leaf organizational structures as a ‘core of essential executives and workers supported by outside contractors and part-time help’, the idea being that by contracting certain services, businesses could be made to work more productively and efficiently. Essentially turning away from the concept of ‘jobs for life’ and advocating for contracts or short-term jobs. The significance of this change is not confined to the transport industry and Uber but is happening across the board and affects every industry as the rise of the ‘agile’ or ‘independent’ workforce has driven the cultural shift of the ‘work is a thing you do, not a place you go’ mentality.

Since seeing my very first space utilization analysis by DEGW in 1998, which demonstrated the majority of office desks were only used 30–40 per cent of the working week, I agonized for years on how to find smart ways of improving on the rates of occupancy. However, I eventually learned that I was looking at the issue the wrong way round – the focus had to be on the people and their activities rather than the physical space. As Dr Paul Luciani, Executive Director for Real Estate at Ernst & Young in Asia, states, the ‘digital revolution makes our love affair with spaces go out the window’. According to Luciani, business is moving very fast to the concept of ‘the individual as the workplace’. The consequences of this notion and the impact it has, not just for CRE/FM, but for the wider real estate sector is momentous. The shift from fixed to fluid in terms of space consumption is compounded by the general societal move to using space on demand and via a subscription model, as per the alternative workplace business model.

This is another piece of evidence as to why both consumers and providers of commercial real estate need to get their heads together to figure out the implications of this paradigm shift, which is taking place under our noses. As one Head of Workplace for a well-known global sports brand observed, ‘Maybe it is time for CRE and the business to redefine the notion of place?’

The Workplace Gets Smart

The concept of work being ‘something you do’ rather than ‘somewhere you go to’ is beginning to make an impact on working practices all over the world; which means that an organization’s leaders and decision-makers are entering or are already in the midst of a maelstrom of uncharted managerial waters. In the US this debate has focused on whether ‘telecommuting’ is a good idea or not. I believe a more holistic approach is required beyond just whether your white-collar staff can work in the office or at home and this is due to the explosion of choice both in terms of workspace and actual working practices. For the first time ever, we are dealing with the convergence of multiple variations of employment and workplace environments likely to operate in a twenty-first-century enterprise, which could include:

Activity-Based Work or ABW was pioneered in the early 1980s by American architect Robert Luchetti and put into practice by Dutch architect Erik Veldhoen in the mid-1990s. ABW offers employees the choice of different types of workspaces, each designed to support the specific task they are working on. They are set up to include quiet zones or closed spaces for individual work, as well as open settings for meetings, collaborative work and team-based activities; this also extends to working remotely.

Agile Working provides employees with complete autonomy to work however, whenever and wherever they want, including from home, in a coffee shop and even behind a traditional desk in an office! There is maximum flexibility and minimum constraint in the way work is carried out. The onus is on employees to choose how and when they work in the most productive and efficient manner in order to drive long-term organizational success. Agile working environments often complement Activity-Based Work.

Flexible Working encompasses a full range of practices, listed below. In some countries, employees have statutory rights to apply for flexible working arrangements, although this is not a given everywhere. It is up to the employee to request this provision from their employer with both parties agreeing to a suitable consensus. It is interesting to note that a Lancaster University Work Foundation report published in 2016 predicted that 70 per cent of UK organizations would be adopting some form of flexible working by 2020.

• Part-time Working – Contracted to work less than standard full-time hours, with various permutations;

• Flexi-time – Freedom to work outside a pre-arranged set of hours;

• Staggered hours – Different start/finish times, meaning businesses can stay open longer;

• Compressed working hours – Working the normal contracted hours in fewer working days;

• Job sharing – A full-time job filled by two employees;

• Home working/teleworking – Remote working outside the office;

• Shift work – Work outside the normal 9–5 work schedule;

• Shift swapping – Employees trade shifts between themselves;

• Self-rostering – Employees design their own schedules matching individual preferences/skills;

• Annualized hours – Hours are worked out annually and any remaining are kept in reserve for busy periods;

• Phased retirement – Transitioning out of work with a reduced workload;

• Term-time working – Full-time work during school terms only;

• V-time working – Reducing hours for a fixed period.

Third-Space Disruption and Backlash

Pre-Covid-19 we saw the freeing up of the ‘where’ and ‘how’ we work options, in conjunction with the maturing of digital connectivity and the availability of a viable and secure cloud-based service. This means yet another dimension of flexibility has opened up. In the past it was a binary proposition when access to the internet was limited to the home and the office. In the last two decades we have seen an explosion of ‘third spaces’ where mobile workers can just plug, work and play. In fact, hotels, coffee shops and public spaces, such as libraries, have realized that they can provide solutions to those remote workers on the move.

Inevitably, with the rise of home, remote and ‘third space’ working, we are consuming space in a much broader manner than ever before – to the point where commentators speculate on the future (or even the demise) of the office itself! Covid-19 has just reinforced these calls. The most famous counter to working from home being Yahoo’s former CEO Marissa Mayer, calling time on remote workers and bringing them back to the office in 2013. Mayer cited the fact that when she made the decision, she felt Yahoo staff would benefit more from face-to-face collaboration in an office environment. She commissioned a redesign of Yahoo’s Sunnyvale HQ in California, but it did not stop a third of the tech giant’s staff leaving in 2014.

To be fair, Mayer was landed with the impossible task of reversing Yahoo’s downward spiral in the ultra-competitive world of Silicon Valley, which led to calls for her removal in 2015 by Yahoo shareholders and her eventual resignation in 2017. At the time of her reversal on Yahoo’s telecommuting policies, she was criticized by a number of business leaders and Mayer herself conceded later that she ‘had never meant to imply that remote working was wrong, just that it wasn’t right for Yahoo, right then’.

IBM, one of the pioneers of the ‘work-from-home’ trend, cracked down on remote working in 2017, with a ‘move back to the office or leave’ policy. This was aimed primarily at their marketing departments, reiterating Marissa Mayer’s view that working together as a team in an office has greater impact and inspires creativity. However, Global Workplace Analytics, a leading workplace research organization, has analysed 4,000 studies which indicate that remote working enables greater productivity, cultivates a happier workforce and encourages better employee retention.

On the flip side, Global Workplace Analytics also found that telecommuting did not necessarily suit everyone as some remote workers lacked motivation and self-discipline working on their own. It can also foster issues of mistrust between managers and their employees. So, in this light, the death of the office could be somewhat exaggerated! Since the first draft of this book was completed, pre-pandemic, many of my assertions have now taken on greater significance. Most of us have now experienced remote working and are really questioning the ways we used to work and the purpose of the office.

Sustainability – The New Competitive Environment

Another emerging factor that business leaders are becoming increasingly aware of is the importance of developing a better sustainability profile for their organizations. This encompasses the wider Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) agenda, which is now morphing into areas of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). The concern over environmental and ethical issues is not a fad anymore, it is now viewed as a necessary and responsible obligation allied to good business practice. So much so that 20 years ago, Dow Jones introduced their Sustainability Index as a key reference for investors to track companies’ performance in terms of economic, environmental and social benchmarks. Major multinational corporations like Blackstone the US-based financial group, launched their impact-investing platform in 2019. Goldman Sachs also aims to deliver investment advice in line with new ESG-related policies, ‘because it makes sense from a business perspective’, with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink stating, ‘a company cannot achieve long-term profits without embracing purpose and considering the needs of a broad range of stakeholders’.

Transforming buildings to reduce emissions or the use of materials which are harmful both to health and the environment has now become a key consideration for management and the wider real estate industry. This means better use of materials and energy-efficient methods, including renewable energy sources, thermal and shading technologies, water recycling and natural ventilation systems, as well as thought going into the environmental impact across a building’s life cycle, from construction to occupancy and beyond. This is reflected by the introduction of internationally recognized certification systems, including LEED in the US, BREEAM in the UK and Green Star in Australia, which asses and rate buildings’ environmental credentials.

According to a 2019 Harvard University study, organizations with a more ‘employee-centric’ approach see a reduction in absenteeism and staff turnover, as well as a 16 per cent rise in productivity, an 18 per cent increase in retaining their talent and an increased 30 per cent attraction rate over their competitors. So, the importance of a well-laid-out, high-quality working environment, with ambient temperatures, workable noise levels, good lighting and air quality, together with easy access to local amenities and services cannot be underestimated. This is especially true now that Millennials and Generation Z make up more than half of the workforce. Interestingly, according to a CBRE worldwide survey of 13,000 Millennials, a remarkable 70 per cent of them rank a quality workplace above salary. More significantly, company review site Glassdoor found that 71 per cent of young workers would quit their jobs on a matter of principle and 74 per cent consider an organization’s stand on political, social and ethical matters as crucial when assessing them as potential employers.

The Importance of Workplace Health and Wellbeing

Parallel to all these developments is the increasing understanding of the wellbeing dimension in the last five to ten years, both physical and more recently in mental health. Slowly, more companies are examining how the built environment is impacting on their employees and are adopting or incorporating Well Building standards into their workplaces.

No one can really afford to ignore the problem of health and wellbeing in the workplace anymore, as indicated by the findings of Integrated Benefits Institute, a research organization which focuses on health and employee productivity – an estimated $227 billion is lost in the US owing to employee absenteeism or presenteeism (when employees are at work, but are unproductive owing to health problems). The onset of the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020 particularly heightened organizations’ concerns surrounding health and wellbeing in the workplace – and concurrently spurred a renewed interest in the dynamics and scope of remote working.

Moreover, a CBRE study found that work-related stress costs the UK 10.4 million working days per year in absences. A less obvious benefit is by improving workplace wellbeing, it could reduce pressure on health care services, especially public systems such as the NHS.

Dr Amanda Rischbieth, a current Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, notes the leading work by Professor Tyler VanderWeele on wellbeing measurement. She sees the positive shift by organizations and individuals towards a broader notion of human wellbeing – that of flourishing – a broad range of states and outcomes, including mental and physical health, but also encompassing happiness and life satisfaction, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships. The emergent Flourishing Index from this work provides a modern and methodologically rigorous and useful approach to employee evaluation.

Sustaining the Value of Brand and Reputation

Sustainability now extends across many other spheres, however, including developing, as well as maintaining a company’s brand and its reputation. Business leaders cannot afford to overlook the significance of their company brand and its reputation, as well as how it is perceived by the outside world. Every decision made in the boardroom can be curated and shared in an instant to millions of people and organizations have absolutely no control over how it is received and the ensuing reaction it causes. A brand or a company’s reputation can easily suffer or even be ‘killed’ outright by negative social media.

The Generation Game: A Wider Dimension

The managing of the multi-generational workforce has become quite a major preoccupation for both HR departments and management. Each generation has its own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses, whose needs and demands must be accommodated and harnessed to enable them to perform at their best and above all, work together harmoniously.

• Baby Boomers – Born between 1946 and 1964
    Increased life expectancy, coupled with rises in the age of retirement worldwide, as governments face a pensions crisis means that 1960s-born Baby Boomers will retire nearer their 70th birthdays. This is an enormous demographic spanning those born after World War II through to the TV generation of the mid-1960s, incorporating both ‘hippies’ and ‘yuppies’. They may have reached their peak but they will still be part of the workforce for the next 10 to 15 years.

• Generation X – Born between 1965 and 1984
    More self-reliant and independent, since this age group were more likely to be brought up in households with both parents working. Their individuality and entrepreneurial spirit, coupled with a keenness to learn and explore, coincided with the onset of the internet and digital technology.

• Millennials/Generation Y – Born between 1985 and 1996
    The first generation growing up with mobile phones and other personal tech gadgets on hand. This makes them natural networkers who happily share information, while thriving in collaborative environments. They certainly expect a positive workplace culture with a strong ethical/environmental stance and as ‘digital natives’ they champion flexible schedules and the remote working agenda since the work–life balance is key for them.

• Centennials/Generation Z – Born between 1997 and 2010
    This iPhone/iPad generation is fully subsumed in technology, true ‘digital natives’ but they have grown up in a post-9/11 world, with the insecurity of the 2008 economic crash, the influence of social media and now Covid-19. Economic worries fuel their ambitions and they are very adept at multitasking; also, likely to have a ‘side hustle’ or be part of the gig economy. They also believe that technology and their smartphones offer both a solution to a problem and an answer to everything, yet they are also more aware of the risks and complications of tech, than previous generations.

Looking at the Multi-Generational Workforce through a Broader Lens

For the most part, commentators have focused on the above sweeping generalizations and stereotypes for each of these age brackets and the workplace dilemma of four generations working together at the same time being an unprecedented phenomenon. Then again, I think this is only part of the equation and nobody has really seen the complete and holistic picture of the multi-generational landscape.

Despite the workforce comprising these four age/generation-related segments, for the most part, the greatest focus has been on the new entrants. Admittedly, they are the future and will dominate the workplace in the next decade. However, I see other nuances in the issues affecting the various age groups, which adds a further layer of complexity for management:

• The new entrants, Millennials and Generation Z, are generally more footloose in their approach to work. According to Deloitte’s 2018 global Millennial Survey, only 28 per cent envisage staying beyond five years with their current employers. They are certainly the embodiment of the ‘agile’ workforce, as characterized by Charles Handy;

• The middle Generation X tier – this is the ‘hidden revolt’ of middle-aged professionals, who now view the work–life balance as a priority and are voting with their feet to escape the ‘rat race’. Their quest for autonomy and a more relaxed schedule means there has been an increased ‘brain drain’ of experienced talent in organizations;

• The Baby Boomers/Silver Brigade – it is a given that the traditional age of retirement is not an option for this group. They are an untapped resource with a wealth of lifetime experience which could be used, albeit on a more flexible basis, with many willing to up their skillsets, especially in technology;

• Working Parents – Inadequate or expensive childcare facilities make it very difficult for working parents across the board. This is especially true in the case of new mothers wanting to return to work and not much consideration is given for the most part to maintaining access and facilitating this pool of talent.

The Critical Connection: Using the Workplace as a Tool for Organizational Change

Gregory Shea, Senior Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management, is a noted academic and a consultant to numerous types of international organizations undergoing transformational change. He argues that although today’s business leaders strive to transform a company’s culture, they underrate woefully the value of the workplace in supporting the kind of change they wish to achieve.

Shea contends that without taking account of the working environment and its relation to people, it is virtually impossible to alter their behaviour. He proposes the only way to enable change successfully is to think of the behaviours you want to encourage in the workplace and then to construct a setting that promotes and supports them. Using the office, whether in a different configuration or actually moving to a completely new space, is still not a fully appreciated accelerator of organizational change. This underlines the key point here that most business leaders under­estimate or fail to see the opportunity in using space as a strategic tool. It was recognized by the BBC’s Director-General/CEO Mark Thompson during his tenure there and as a group, we soon realized that the estate transformation was much more than just a cost-saving programme – it became a key catalyst of change across the entire organization. My role as Head of CRE was to interpret, integrate and instigate turning an underfunded property portfolio which was not fit for purpose into a viable company resource.

Disruptive Forces in Commercial Real Estate Impacting on the Enterprise

On the surface the following factors affect commercial real estate directly, but the impact of these issues will eventually have implications for business leaders and decision makers through their organizational strategies and balance sheets.

Business Effectiveness Dimensions Come Home

People typically account for almost 80 per cent of an organization’s operating costs when one factors in employee salaries, pensions and benefits. Conversely, occupancy/property expenses make up just 9 per cent and historically, these factors have always been treated as stand-alone issues. However, in recent years there is a growing awareness and overwhelming evidence demonstrating that a well-designed and well-run workplace has beneficial effects on the performance of its occupants.

The statistics bear this out since Gallup started polling US employees annually from the year 2000, measuring engagement, commitment to their work and workplace. The figures range from 26 per cent engagement at the beginning of the twenty-first century to an improved 34 per cent reported in 2018, although 53 per cent are still disengaged, with 16.5 per cent totally disengaged.

In his book, The Elemental Workplace, Neil Usher asserts, ‘Everyone deserves a fantastic workplace in which to live, learn, grow, share and contribute. We know that a great workplace is motivating and uplifting and contributes to our sense of self-worth and wellbeing, and therefore benefits the organization in which we are employed.’ Yet despite the figures and numerous studies done regarding the positive effects of a great workplace and the correlation to increased productivity and profitability, coupled with media attention focusing on the ‘go-go’ Google and Facebook offices with their bright colours, beanbags, slides and basketball hoops, the message has not really sunk in and the reality is that most workers are still stuck in usually uninspiring spaces of beige, grey or off-white. It is probably worse for American workers, who are often imprisoned in a sea of cubicles, cubes and corner offices. Indeed elsewhere in the world the cubicle also became the lingua franca of ‘best in class’ office design and layout. However, the tide is beginning to turn as corporations have come to terms with the realization that a great workplace can be a useful tool in the current war for attracting and retaining talent.

The Pitfalls of Measuring Workplace Productivity

This has led the CRE sector measuring and substantiating employee productivity in the workplace to the point of obsession. The leaders in this field are the Leesman Index, positioning themselves as the ‘world’s largest employee experience database’ yet many commentators argue that demonstrating and measuring productivity has yet to be proved and is akin to searching for the ‘Holy Grail’, especially in the knowledge-based twenty-first-century workplace.

Maybe this is an example of how CRE and the wider workplace sector fails to grasp how business leaders view things and I also maintain that we are looking at this issue through the wrong end of the telescope in that quantifying productivity of any degree of percentage can have a huge impact on company profits – that is, say that regardless of whether it is a 5 or 10 per cent or even a 15 per cent improvement. These are all positive results which go straight to the bottom line. Therefore, my argument is we do not need to prove the quantum/percentage but merely demonstrate whether productivity has been achieved and this just requires a simple ‘yes/no’ test. It is the equivalent to the ‘on/off’ button in the digital world – either you have productivity or not!

The Key Link: A Well-Designed Workplace = A Well-Run Workspace

So far, most with some notable exceptions have focused on how a well-designed workplace has beneficial outcomes on the performance of its occupants but purely from the design aspect – agreeable architectural features of the building, the overall look and feel of its surroundings, the ergonomically-designed layouts of workspaces, offices, furniture and its aesthetics. However, it is all very well having a shiny new designer workplace but the crux of the matter is how it is operated to enable and facilitate work.

A truly effective workplace reduces the amount of friction and stress that a typical office worker endures in going about their day-to-day work and it is the result of a well-run and well-managed support organization, who can administer a workplace successfully. The crucial connection is linking the mindsets of the fragmented property industry, the people managing pro­jects versus those in charge of its operational aspects, as well as those leading the enterprise.

Smashing the Shibboleths of Commercial Real Estate – The Customer is King!

The ‘customer is king’ approach might be a basic tenet in every other market sector and yet for the most part the real estate industry still seems to adhere to the old Henry Ford school of thought, that any customer could have any colour car they wanted ‘so long as it is black!’ – underpinned by its ‘build it and they will come’ mantra and mentality. The other driver for this is the major shift away from twentieth-century thinking: the obsession with owning and possessing property to one moving towards accessing and consuming space.

Other businesses have been grappling with changing customer needs for years, but it has now hit real estate in momentous fashion – giving consumers more choice in their workplace options for the first time. Guy Holden, Head of CBRE Enterprise Client Group EMEA, is quite forthright in stating, ‘It’s about time that the real estate industry woke up to the fact that we’re here to bring to the market a product that the consumer actually wants, as opposed to an asset class that the developer wants.’

The Relentless March of the Flexible Workspace Disruptors

The emergence of alternative models for using office space accelerated back in 1989 with the arrival of Regus, now IWG. This was led by British entrepreneur Mark Dixon, who spotted a gap in the European market on a business trip to Brussels. He noticed that executives on the move had no place to work or hold meetings other than in hotels, so he had the simple idea of providing fully-staffed and maintained office space for companies to use as required. Similar ventures had started in the US earlier but were small-scale in nature. What Regus did was to ‘weaponize’ the concept and it expanded globally. His pioneering service reflects the view that, ‘there will be winners and losers in the real estate industry like any other business, if you don’t start giving the customer what they want’ – a factor that sees IWG, together with its associated brands/franchise partners, as the workplace market leader, spanning 3,300 locations in 1,100 towns and cities across more than 110 countries.

Over the last 20 years multiple new entrants have expanded the ‘serviced office’ market offering various ways to consume working space flexibly. Certainly the dominant ‘new kid on the block’ as previously discussed is WeWork, with 625 locations in over 127 cities in 33 countries (2020 figures) riding on a blitzkrieg strategy of marketing, promotion and ‘do what you love’. Their basic business model works on the premise of buying properties on a long-lease contract before refitting the premises and then subletting on shorter leases at a profit. In addition, they also woke up landlords to the fact that office tenants want shorter-term leases and no upfront capital.

Undoubtedly, they are giving their clients an appealing, attractive, flexible proposition but it has rapidly become a crowded market with many players, such as Convene, Offices iQ, Instant Offices, LiquidSpace, Knotel, Serendipity Labs, The Office Group, among others, all jostling to get a piece of the flexible space sector action. It has also prompted, or one might say provoked, a few of the property world’s ‘old guard’, such as Land Securities, British Land in the UK, as well as Boston Properties, Tischman Speyer in the US and Australia’s Lend Lease and Dexus to dip their toes into introducing flexible workplace brands, with catchy names such as Myo, Storey, Studio and Dexus Place. These non-core flexible space products are offered alongside their mainstream traditional leasing operations. Although early days, it is expected that market forces will push these and other major players to think seriously about their role in flexible space.

The Penetration of Proptech

Another disrupting factor for the property industry as a whole has been the explosion of new easily accessible digital tools, which have boosted the service-side of the market in recent years. Similar to the impact Fintech had on banking, Proptech could end up being the real estate equivalent of bitcoin. The property world is finally facing ‘a wave of tech-enabled innovation that is reshaping the way real estate is transacted, designed, built and marketed’. For the most part, the well-known companies such as Opendoor, Zillow, Trulia, etc. in the US and UK online platforms Purplebricks, Rightmove and Zoopla among others operate mainly within the residential marketplace although it is interesting to note that many of these Proptech initiatives have a mission to replace ‘real-life’ estate agents/realtors completely.

Proptech has had positive effects on the industry in two ways since it has driven the increased availability to information. Meaning that the property world’s major players have lost their long-established power to control data and the way it was used in the past. Their position has been usurped, since transparency and accessibility are now the order of the day and Proptech companies are interpreting, curating and sharing information openly. The creation of international property databases offers a more reliable and accurate set of figures with a clearer picture of the value of real estate, rather than when individual groups or one organization produced their own set of numbers. The other plus point is that by digitizing the US Land Records and the UK’s Land Registry, enhanced by data platforms like CoStar, the process of property transactions is being speeded up considerably.

Impact on Commercial Real Estate

Real estate strategist Dror Poleg, author of Rethinking Real Estate, asserts that ‘technology undermines the inherent value of real estate assets’ and this fundamental shift means that ‘many of the assumptions that make real estate attractive to institutional investors are being challenged’. As Poleg explains, in his dissection of the world of real estate investment, there is tangible evidence of a big market shift. There is now a growing realization that consumers are less likely to take on long-term lease commitments, while also demanding greater operational-type services based around user experience and wellbeing. Thus, the predictable ‘bond-like’ income of a lease will diminish. In his book, Poleg lays out ten plagues, which describe the factors forcing real estate owners to consider shifting their business model to B2C. Or, as he puts it, ‘shifting from a model that thrives on well-run assets to an industry that thrives on well-run businesses’. These real estate businesses will focus more on service than on the asset itself.

This shift is also coupled with the expectation that according to JLL, 30 per cent of corporate portfolios will be taken up by flexible office space by 2030. The key distinction being that this type of product does not require a formal lease and all the trappings that go with the leasing process and this includes transaction costs. In this context, commercial real estate companies, like JLL, have already seen the vital role Proptech will play in the future and their venture capital arm has already invested in digital commercial property advisor Hubble. This UK-based tech group operates an online platform which matches companies needing flexible office space with landlords and commercial space providers – their ultimate ambition is to offer this service worldwide.

Canadian-owned Breather offers ‘on-demand’ private workspaces in North America and London booked through an app, by the hour, the day or longer in a wide range of locations to tailor every need. These customer-focused digital services are not confined to property players alone. Restaurant chains are getting in on the act by offering app services to reserve tables in their premises, with access to electric sockets, unlimited Wi-Fi and coffee, plus the added bonus of hosting clients/colleagues for a working lunch, all in one place. This all fits into the narrative of the ‘Uberization’ of the workplace, DEGW alumnus. WeWork SVP Ronen Journo points out that the future of the flexible office will be, ‘The go somewhere and use it as a consumption-based model. Uber did it. And it is coming for the flex workspace.’ In addition, these Proptech developments also intensify the debate of what will happen to the army of advisors/consultants/brokers who have been churning the supply side of the commercial property market for years.

Efficiency Has Hit the Buffers

The last decade has seen incessant effort on driving down occupancy costs and it has been particularly relentless in FM. However, from 2015 onwards, industry commentators including CoreNet Global started a refocusing exercise looking into real estate as a driver of value not just as an overhead cost. This is a concept which I had promoted for many years and was the linchpin of the transformation at the BBC, which proved the theory that it is not just about the buildings, but about the value chain beyond merely bricks and mortar.

• Space Standards
    One area which has become a bastion of the efficiency drive everywhere is space standards – however, Covid-19 will be a game-changer in this factor now. Over the last decade there has been an extensive drive in allocating less space per person within office buildings. Typically, in the UK and Europe the traditional rule of thumb was one person for every 10m² of space; this is now reducing to one person for every 8m² and sometimes as low as one person for every 6m².
    Over the years the US has based space allocations on one person for every 20m² or higher, but this is changing slowly. CoreNet Global estimates the average in 2017 to be 14m². (In the US, this would be calculated in square feet, with 20m² being 225sq ft and 14m² equalling 151sq ft.) Corporate America’s love affair with cubicles in their workplace design means they have lagged behind in shrinking space per person, although they are now catching up;

• Questioning Headcount Forecasting Viability
    Headcount forecasting is an essential business tool. A company needs to have data for staff planning to put their strategic priorities and budgets in place. They are key for the HR department since they are in charge of position requirements and hiring, as well as the training, development and general welfare of employees. It is also useful for the accommodation planning framework, especially given the complex and inflexible real estate systems that exists today. Still, like all measuring methods, the results can only be as accurate as the information submitted and now headcount forecasting can be considered to be fairly useless in the face of changing labour market dynamics.
    Business leaders would probably find it more useful to have data on the actual needs of their enterprise, as opposed to simple headcounts. This would be in addition to comprehensive real-time information on their organization’s real estate portfolio in terms of corporate and competitive realities, which also impacts on their strategic planning, budgeting, cash flows, etc. It was interesting to note that the CRE leaders of global organizations who attended my US workshop were regularly approached by the C-Suite to provide headcount and occupancy reports rather than HR;

• Outsourcing Corporate Real Estate/Facilities Management
    Over the last 10 to 15 years many companies have been outsourcing these functions, which were traditionally kept in-house. For example, BBC Property had upwards of 120 people at the beginning of 2004 and eventually reduced their staff down to 32 in 2019.
    Contracting out these functions has both pros and cons: namely outsourcing companies are usually seen to offer a better service in terms of having more experience in specific areas, access to better resources and advanced processes, as well as specialized training and people beyond in-house teams. This certainly saves money, especially since the contractor also absorbs employee costs.
    The cons are a lack of understanding and in-depth knowledge on the part of the outsourcing company of an organization’s culture, its strategy, its people and its operations, since they do not have the same level of loyalty and affiliation as an in-house team. A further drawback is when organizations do not clearly articulate their service expectations or the contracting model has not been thought out thoroughly, inevitably causing dissatisfaction in the outcome for both parties.
    Another factor in the UK was the collapse of outsourcing giants Carillion in 2018, followed by service providers Interserve in 2019, which have damaged the industry greatly. Resulting in an approxi­mate 30 per cent decline in the number of contracts awarded to outsourcing companies in 2018, according to an analysis report carried out by Facilitate Magazine in 2019.

The Commoditizing of Facilities Management

As a result of this trend in outsourcing and the huge success of the procurement departments, the FM offering by third parties is rapidly approaching a commodity service. Not only that but it is fragmented, since its chief function is to co-ordinate a thin layer of management over the many services (maintenance, cleaning, security, waste management, etc.) and professional silos within an organization. In other words, providing ‘service bundling’, which is not quite the same as delivering a truly integrated, value-added service.

• The Decline of Public/Private Financing Models
    An associated aspect of the efficiency drive especially in the UK has been public/private finance initiative types of outsourcing, known as PFIs, although recently some of these partnerships have suffered reversals and have subsequently fallen out of favour. However, back in 1999, there was a great swathe of large-scale outsourcing involving various government departments and their entire real estate portfolios under the two biggest schemes, PRIME and STEPS.
    In 2001, the publicly owned BBC entered a joint venture partnership with Land Securities Trillium to the tune of £2.5 billion, which involved a series of building and renovation projects over a 30-year period. This came to a premature end in 2005, when the BBC recognized that it could obtain alternative financing by raising money on the bond market for its redevelopment at a cheaper rate than Land Securities. At that point it was felt that the BBC needed to rethink the agreement and perhaps outsourcing was not the right option, so the contract with Land Securities was cancelled. At the time it was perceived as hugely embarrassing, but it saved the BBC and the licence payer the tidy sum of £60 million.

Standing back and taking a strategic view of the situation may not result in certain parties seeing eye-to-eye, but the reality of the situation is that cost-cutting has achieved its goal and there is no more fat on the bone. In fact, there is now a significant risk that core service delivery can be compromised owing to the pressure on outsourced providers to deliver a service which is not profitable and this has implications for an organization’s management and their balance sheet.

Implications of Shifting Regulations on Property Market Dynamics

• The FASB/IFRS 16 Accounting Standard
    Endorsed by the Finance Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), its introduction in January 2019 concerns the leasing and renting of assets, which is an important and widely used financing solution for many companies. This includes offices, power plants, retail spaces, warehousing and other high-value items and it enables companies to access and use property or high-price equipment without incurring large cash outflows at the start. The new requirements eliminate nearly all off-balance sheet accounting for lessees/tenants and redefines many commonly used financial metrics, such as the gearing ratio and EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization). In a nutshell, leases will now be treated as a liability, not an expense item, which will have a great impact on demand and will also have implications on an organization’s balance sheet. This might affect the economics of leases/rentals and put pressure on pricing, with real estate landlords finding it more difficult to demand higher rents, especially in tough economic times.

As a consequence of shifting developments in the property sector the question is: how will business managers and the commercial real estate world reach an equilibrium vis à vis the workplace and make a profit? Navigating this balance will be crucial to how organizations operate and thrive in the twenty-first-century.

How Will the Odd Couple Enterprise and Office Come Together?

So how is the business world to make sense of all these drivers for change and above all to find the missing link between making money and the workplace? Part of the difficulty is that old habits die hard, especially if they are aligned with vested interests and profits in both the business and the property sectors. However, we have now reached an inflection point and since everyone is living in a world full of change, complexity and ambiguity, we must act now!

Most importantly, it is time to build bridges with other players before it is too late. This message has to be hammered home and it applies to all parties. The Odd Couple of enterprise leaders and the wider real estate industry – all of them have to broaden their outlook, look over the parapet into each other’s worlds to understand how they function. For corporate real estate departments, allied with FM, it is time to shift their thinking beyond cost control and efficiency and take responsibility for workplace effectiveness. Everyone needs to work together to build a deeper and more holistic understanding of how a smart and effective workplace can deliver tangible business value; not just reduced occupancy costs and this applies not only to the enterprise but also to the wider real estate world.

Business Leaders’ Remit to Effect Change

Leaders have to understand how they can tap into an underutilized tool – their corporate real estate – and see how it can be used to their competitive advantage. There has to be a shift in focus from looking at their real estate on a cost centre basis and to accept that it is an intrinsic part of the corporation’s value chain. Most managers see their real estate holdings purely as an expense line item and in some cases as an organizational millstone which eats into their profit margins, especially when they have far too much space.

As previously mentioned, the workplace now conveys an organization’s purpose and its corporate values more than ever before. Enterprise leaders have to consider how the workplace can become part of a corporation’s arsenal of competitive weaponry in this increasingly connected world, where brand and reputation are crucial factors. Therefore, harnessing the unlocked potential of the workplace has to be a serious consideration. Serial entrepreneur and former banker Kate Lister, President of Global Analytics in San Diego, is an internationally recognized authority on emerging workplace strategies. A long-time proponent of flexible working, she asserts that there has to be a ‘shift from a return on cost mindset to a return on people one’. After all, people are a business’s most valuable resource and ultimately, their engagement with their working environment is paramount to an organization’s success. The important question here is: How many business leaders have made the connection between productive staff and a productive workplace?

Management has to recognize that an effective and efficient workplace contributes to the attraction and retention of its talent. A 2018 Gallup estimated that staff turnover costs US companies $1 trillion per year.3 At a conservative estimate, the cost of replacing an individual employee can range from one-half to two times that person’s annual salary. These expenses are never registered directly on a company balance sheet, yet they are phenomenal! Moreover, this is a fixable problem and business leaders must focus on commissioning work environments which engage people while creating a meaningful workplace culture. They have to understand and build new models of effective management, while also broadening and deepening their leadership capabilities – shaping them around a network of empowered teams composed of skilled people whose abilities they can develop, nurture and retain for the benefit of their organizations.

Creating a meaningful work environment and an effective workplace is a complex process, but business leaders have the resources on hand and probably in-house – provided they realize that by effectively leveraging and co-ordinating the skill sets and perspectives provided by their CRE, FM, HR and IT teams. In this way savvy leaders can achieve their goal and gain an advantage over their competitors – finding themselves attracting the best talent.

Shifting Paradigms in Real Estate

Looking at the wider world of real estate, there seem to be budding shoots of a fresh approach in how to supply buildings. In part this change in starting to think about operating differently has been forced on many property companies and investors by the various disruptive factors, whose impact has already been analysed.

This is certainly the view of Sir Stuart Lipton, founder of Stanhope Plc, now Partner at Lipton Rogers LLP. Since the 1980s he has masterminded the development of many iconic sites and buildings across the UK. Sir Stuart is considered the doyen of the British developer cadre and father of its commercial real estate. He might be the patrician veteran of the property world but his ‘call to arms’ to the real estate sector is both progressive and succinct: ‘Let’s focus on the consumer. We have, as an industry, to stop building buildings for ourselves and start building buildings for our occupiers.’

While I support Sir Stuart’s point of view, I suggest that one other positive step would be to consider the TI or fit-out process, which in most cases is both time-consuming and complicated. Given the speed to market business imperative that is the norm nowadays, perhaps some thought needs to be applied to streamlining a process which usually takes six to nine months to execute – another reason why businesses are opting for taking spaces in the flexible market.

Real estate needs to accept that the occupier is the customer as opposed to the property, investment or finance groups backing them financially and that the needs and demands of the occupier/customer come first. Consequently, the commercial property sector has to engage in a more meaningful manner with businesses, who after all are their customers and these business people now have a real choice in how they consume space.

Additionally, progress in effecting organizational change in enterprises occupying commercial spaces can only be achieved if both the ‘older real estate siblings’ can align with CRE/FM to support them to focus on making more effective use of offices. Accordingly, they also have a role to play in helping business leaders understand the link of how a corporate property portfolio delivers better business performance through better workplace performance, therefore maximizing the return on their investment.

Corporate Real Estate and Facilities Management Have to Shift Gears

An organization’s internal CRE/FM still struggles to figure out how they can become enablers in providing solutions for the needs of the businesses they serve. While many believe they are hampered by the constraints imposed by the wider real estate world and thus have no options to progress, these internal teams actually have great potential in enabling real estate solutions.

First, and this is especially true in the case of FM, they have to overcome the perception management has of them as the ‘people who do stuff’ and transform this assessment into becoming a company’s ‘problem solvers’. Both CRE and FM must expand their remit to include not only the visible features of design and workplace functions, but also the less visible organizational factors such as strategy, structure, process, incentives and talent – that is, they must engage proactively with corporate executives if they want to receive the recognition they deserve and be seen as much more than mere ‘order takers’.

Dr Barry Varcoe, former Global Head of FM/CRE at the Zurich Insurance Group and currently Global Director of Real Estate & Facilities at George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, highlights, ‘The core issue is no longer about buildings or services but about enabling productivity that delivers competi­tive advantage for an organization.’

The main objective of FM and CRE is to change mindsets from just managing their supply chains to delivering a coherent ‘value for money’ service and not just at the lowest cost. In order to accomplish that, they must understand and learn to speak the ‘language’ of the business their organization operates and become better aligned to an enterprise’s objectives and business aims.

Up to now FM and CRE practitioners have not been required to learn about the wider demands of running a business, since they are anchored in measures which are purely real estate focused, such as improving occupancy levels and reducing cost per rentable square foot. Mainly because the wider industry itself is structured in such a way that it sees no real reason to concern itself with matters outside the commercial real estate and internal facilities silo. There are some examples of good practice such as programmes run by CoreNet Global, but mainstream partici­pation is what is needed to change mindsets across the board. This also extends to business leaders, who have to realize that they too can direct change in the status quo and co-opt CRE/FM to add value to their enterprise. Plus, they could expand the way CRE/FM people are rewarded beyond the narrow definition of managing occupancy costs and doing good real estate deals to include how these functions enable productive work and create business value.

The Odd Couple and Other Stakeholders Must Join Forces

Having considered all the various players in isolation could there be untapped benefits from taking a more joined-up approach? By understanding the views and perspectives of all the stakeholders involved in the provision and consumption of real estate, could such an approach produce some fresh perspectives and insights?

The critical point here is that all the stakeholders – the consumer/tenant/ business, the real estate industry, together with the CRE/FM sub-sector – all have to engage at the same time and at the same pace. They could build a fresh perspective in creating a renewed approach to how we produce and operate workplaces and offices. To this end there has to be a shift in the dial on a three-way basis to change mindsets and adapt to new and innovative ways of thinking in order to generate both entrepreneurial and social value. No doubt the Covid-19 crisis of 2020 may well influence this aspect and if this can be managed, it can be mutually beneficial and a ‘win-win’ for all parties concerned. It will certainly generate significant dividends in the wider context of creating real social value, together with leaving a more sustainable legacy for future generations.

Six Steps for Businesses to Build Benefits from Fresh Perspectives

• Change the traditional workplace/real estate focus from being ‘building-centric’ to one that is ‘people-centric’;

• Recognize the potential of multiple workplace dimensions rather than just that of the traditional office set-up; we can now do office work anywhere, anytime, anyhow;

• Pursuing a concerted effort in sustainability and carbon reduction solutions. The real estate sector could partner with corporate occupiers to make really meaningful contributions to the climate challenge. Thereby demonstrating tangible Social Value and compliance with investor ESG criteria;

• Framing an alliance of CRE/FM and HR to join the dots between people and place has to be an essential ingredient of organizational success, as well as not ignoring the contribution of IT and Procurement; As part of the re-alignment, these support functions need to adopt a different form of leadership, which requires a wider business lens rather than just looking at it from their current respective professional and siloed points of view;

• Use the combined influence of all the stakeholders with academia to include workplace strategy on MBAs and Senior Executive programmes to educate and build awareness into making better use of the built environment;

• Consider broadening the current finance-driven bond-like model for real estate and evaluate options to take account of the growing flexible space sector.

Sources

1. ‘Companies, investors, and governments must prepare for a significant reallocation of capital.’

Fink, L. ‘A Fundamental Reshaping of Finance’. BlackRock CEO Letter, 2020 https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/|larry-fink-ceo-letter

2. ‘We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.’

Schwab, K. ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond’. Global Agenda, 2016.

3. ‘core of essential executives and workers supported by outside contractors and part-time help’.

Handy, C. ‘The Shamrock Organization’. The Age of Unreason (revised ed.), London: Arrow, 2002. (First published Random House Business Books, 1989; reprint. 1991.) Chapter 4. p. 70.

4. ‘had never meant to imply that remote working was wrong, just that it wasn’t right for Yahoo, right then’.

Bort, J. ‘Marissa Mayer defends her famous ban on remote work’. Business Insider, 2015. https://www.businessinsider.com/mayer-still-defends-remote-work-ban-2015. 5. ‘because it makes sense from a business perspective’.

Stevens, P. ‘Goldman pledges $750 billion for “large opportunities” in sustainable finance’. CNBC.com, 2019. https://www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/12/19/goldman-pledges-750-billion-for-opportunities-in-sustainable-finance.html

6. ‘a company cannot achieve long-term profits without embracing purpose and considering the needs of a broad range of stakeholders’.

Fink, L. ‘A Fundamental Reshaping of Finance’. Ibid.

7. ‘Everyone deserves a fantastic workplace in which to live, learn, grow, share and contribute… We know that a great workplace is motivating and uplifting and contributes to our sense of self-worth and wellbeing, and therefore benefits the organization in which we are employed.’

Usher, N. The Elemental Workplace: The 12 Elements for Creating a Fantastic Workplace for Everyone. London: Lid Publishing, 2018, p. 5.

8. ‘world’s largest employee experience database’.

Leesman Index Website. ‘How we do it’. https://www.leesmanindex.com/

9. ‘so long as it is black!’

Ford, H. in collaboration with Crowther, S. My Life and Work. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1922, p. 72.

10. ‘a wave of tech-enabled innovation that is reshaping the way real estate is transacted, designed, built and marketed’.

Block, A. & Aarons, Z. Proptech 101: Turning Chaos Into Cash Through Real Estate Innovation, Charleston: Advantage, 2019, p. 3.

11. ‘technology undermines the inherent value of real estate assets’.

12. ‘many of the assumptions that make real estate attractive to institutional investors are being challenged’.

13. ‘shifting from a model that thrives on well-run assets to an industry that thrives on well-run businesses’.

Poleg, D. Rethinking Real Estate: A Roadmap to Technology’s Impact on the World’s Largest Asset Class. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature, 2019. Preface IX. p.240, p.97

Epigraph

Burke, E. (ed. E.J. Payne) ‘Conciliation with America’. Select Work, Vol. 1., New Jersey: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 1881, 2005, p. 222.

Note

³ McFeely, S. and Wigert, B. ‘This fixable problem costs U.S. businesses $1 trillion’. Gallup Workplace, 2019. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247391/fixable-problem-costs-businesses-trillion.aspx