Subj : Re: Stage 4 COVID
To : Nightfox
From : poindexter FORTRAN
Date : Thu Dec 19 2024 09:15 am
-=> Nightfox wrote to Accession <=-
Ac> Instead, they should justify how much money they would save if they
Ac> *didn't* have to lease office space, or pay any of the utilities. I'm
Ac> surprise more businesses haven't done this, to be honest.
Automattic, the company that makes Wordpress, closed down a great office
in SOMA, San Francisco. They decided it didn't worth having an office
that no one went into and would rather spend the money on company
offsites where they'd get people together from around the world.
That was back when Wordpress was cutting edge and not shooting
themselves in the foot in public. :(
Ni> I've heard of some companies doing that. Of the ones that continue to
Ni> lease office spaces, I think the biggest reasons are: - The employer
Ni> feels that it's best to have people working together in person, as it
Ni> can be easier to talk to people when you can walk over to where they
Ni> sit.
Lots of people have money tied up in commercial real estate investments,
and a lot of them are CEOs of companies with heavy expenditures in real
estate...
Ni> Some companies might also some perks to their employees when they have
Ni> a physical office building. Depending on the size of the company, they
Ni> might offer things like free drinks (or maybe just free coffee), an
Ni> on-site cafe, and whatnot. If they choose not to lease a building,
Ni> then naturally they'd also save money by not being able to offer these
Ni> perks anymore. Some people could complain that a company is being
Ni> cheap by opting out of offering such things to their employees.
I did like my time working for $LARGE_INTERNET_AUCTION_SITE. They had a
beautiful campus with 2 large cafes, a gym, lots of walking paths, outdoor
meeting spaces and a pond. They still haven't seemed to have rebounded
from Covid, I drove by there recently and the gates to the parking lot
were closed - it looked like you needed to show your badge to a security
guy to get in.
I still think the new model is hoteling, but I don't think people are
quite ready yet. For it to work, everyone needs to buy-in, and change
the mindset of making your cube/office your nest - house plants,
pictures of the kids, etc.
In an office of 70 people currently, we could get along in a 20 person
office. Hotel spaces with monitors, keyboard, and mice pre-setup. Gift
everyone a nice set of headphones. Lockers or cubbies for personal items
you want to keep in the office.
Make informal meeting spaces - I've seen them look like libraries, dens,
or simply areas with configurable seating spaces, tables and monitors.
Get a great MFP and urge people to scan paper to email. No more file
cabinets weighing you down.
If you need office phones use soft phones and the aforementioned
headphones.
Phone booths are great for telephone conversations - we had a row of
them on each floor for telephone conversations.
You still need all-hands space, many multi-tenant buildings have a space
you can rent out.
That way, you have space for people to come in, run all your meetings as
hybrid, and save a bunch on real estate (and eliminate the "dead office"
effect you get when 3/4 of your workforce is working remotely)
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
