Employers might also consider tweaks for lockdown working, including:

Recognising that working parents may be frequently interrupted, prolonged periods of “focused time” do not exist, and there is no such thing as “complete silence”

Not starting online meetings exactly on the hour, when school class sessions typically start

Checking in advance with working parents when is convenient to take a call, or scheduling a time for one

Breaking up long online meetings with micro breaks for all participants

Recording organisational updates so parents can tune in at a time to suit the family schedule

Enabling and encouraging staff to take reasonable breaks, as they would do in a normal work environment

Encouraging and facilitating discussions of “chaos” to counteract notions of being the ideal worker or parent.

The post In a lockdown, where does work end and parenting begin? Welcome to the brave new world of ‘zigzag working’ appeared first on Commercial Office Leasing.

• Community spaces should cover 25% of square footage in an office. These are high-energy atmospheres that serve as hubs for human connection and informal workspaces—such as lobbies, cafes, and snack bars—and therefore, can have a variety of seating for different levels of comfort.

• A team “home” space also gets 25%. This area gives office inhabitants a sense of belonging and comfort in which to ground themselves and routinely find their colleagues. While these home areas do feature workstations and are equipped with everything specific teams need, they also house a greater number of informal seating options, as well as personal lockers.

• Meeting areas would take 20%. Conference and huddle rooms ranging in size should accommodate productivity and have designated spaces within them to write, present, and video conference, along with a large degree of formality and privacy.

• Collaborative spaces should get 10%. These can be open nooks, creative corners, and open spaces for agile working and touching bases with teams before or after meetings—offering high-backed seating or booths to give visual privacy.

• Solo spaces should be spread across 10% of the space. They provide an environment in which to focus, and should ideally be soundproofed, allowing employees to engage in rich, productive thought or conduct private calls; in a balanced office ecosystem, there should be one private space for every eight employees. These can be focus rooms, phone booths, or hot desks, as long as they’re removed from the shared-work environment.

• Well-being spaces should cover 5% of the office, but are particularly crucial, as workspaces should be designed in such a way that they have a positive impact on people’s mental and physical well-being. Much of this relates to indoor climate and experience: acoustics, daylight access, air quality, and thermal comfort. Examples of these spaces could be a “relax and recharge” station with comfortable seating, warm light, textiles, plants, and bookshelves; meditation rooms; and a mother’s room.

• Supportive spaces, such as bathrooms, printing rooms, and hallways, take the remaining 5%.

The post Open offices failed. These are 6 essentials to make sure the next office doesn’t appeared first on Commercial Office Leasing.

Link to article

The post Canadian workers are ready to come back to the office appeared first on Commercial Office Leasing.

When the pandemic sent us all home last spring, we were all faced with the same question in our businesses, what do we do now? The one thing that was consistent, was that nobody had experienced this before, and it was new territory for all. We knew that there were tough times ahead for many of our clients and industry partners, and we wanted to be able to add value, beyond furniture.

How can we help with business decisions? How can we help clients understand exactly how their space is being used, and how can we help with the return to work? These questions are what lead us into the world of Workplace Technology. We didn’t want band-aid or profiteering solutions. We were searching for accurate, anonymous solutions that add measurable value to clients during the pandemic, and beyond.

One year later we have curated, adjusted, and tailored solutions for a variety of verticals. In the tech sector, most companies are completely comfortable implementing a workplace scheduling platform that requires user engagement. Other verticals might not adopt this type of platform, that requires all users to engage for the data to prove useful. This is the advantage to having flexibility in our offering, so it can be specific to each client, who all have a different problem to solve. Whether it is managing the scheduling of space and the inevitable return or measuring the true occupancy so you’re accurately informed on usage before your next leasing decision, we can help.

The Collective strives to be a resource to our clients and industry partners for anything relating to an interior, and this is another layer of strength in those relationships and solutions.

For more info on The Collective, please reach out to:
Ben Findlay
Business Development Manager 
Mobile: 647.241.5808 
bfindlay@collective.space
www.collective.space  

The post How The Collective is helping tenant’s get back to the office. appeared first on Commercial Office Leasing.

Slightly over half (53%) of workers expect to be back in a physical office full-time within the next six months.

What modifications of an office and office procedures would give workers the most confidence in returning?
Temperature scanning (49%)
Touchless door entry (34%)
Mask detection close behind (32%)
Touch-free sign-in and sign-out for contact tracing (30%)
Social distancing measures (29%)

Most common protection being offered by companies.
Providing masks, hand sanitizer, or other gear (73%)
Increasing cleaning protocols (59%)
Enforcing physical distancing (55%)
Requiring temperature checks or thermal scanning for on-site access (48%)

Top five factors that would make them feel comfortable interacting with others in an office.
I am vaccinated (48%)
My coworkers are vaccinated (35%)
Social distancing at work (34%)
Mandatory mask wearing in the workplace (33%)
Wide availability of the vaccine to the public (30%)
Requiring sick employees to stay home (29%)

Only one out of 10 working consumers said nothing would making them feel comfortable working in an environment around other people.

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The post Office Recovery: The Great Experiment appeared first on Commercial Office Leasing.

– While 83 percent of CEOs want employees to return in person, only 10 percent of employees want to come back full time.
– Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter are all giving staff members the option of working remotely on a permanent basis.
– Only a quarter (of executives) say they will allow employees to work remotely for a significant amount of time.
– By contrast to what workers say (re their productivity), about half of executives do not believe their workers have been more productive since going remote.
– Companies are all looking at each other trying to see who will bring people back first, and what kind of negative PR they get. That will dictate how quickly the others follow.

Employees balk at end to remote work: ‘Going back to the office is stupid”

https://www.newsweek.com/2021/04/30/employees-balk-end-remote-work-going-back-office-stupid-1583059.html

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The post Harvard Study Finds Most Workers Would Rather Continue Working From Home appeared first on Commercial Office Leasing.

WORKPLACE STRATEGY RESET

Remote work is here to stay, but so too is the office. The mass shift to remote working during the pandemic has put a spotlight on a trend that has been growing but is not new: fluidity in work styles. Most employees want to work in a more balanced way and as they return to the office, they will desire flexibility and choice. Employers seeking to come out ahead in the race for talent will need to build trust and offer choice.

The physical office will remain a key part of this new hybrid workforce network: 67% of employees desire a balance of office and remote work, according to CBRE’s Future of Work research findings. While fully remote arrangements are unlikely to be favoured in future real estate strategies, remote working will lower the utilization of office on a regular basis. Recent analysis suggests that this could cut the need for office space by 10% to 20%, but it’s still too soon to know. Despite the easing of restrictions in many provinces, most companies have not yet returned to the office.

When they do return, occupiers will favour hybrid work styles that combine remote work with office use. A fundamental reset in workplace policies will then be required to provide employees with choice while maintaining a culture of accountability, productivity, diversity, and wellness. Until then, many companies will take a conservative approach, deferring leasing decisions if possible.

OFFICE DOWNTURN TO STABILIZE

Canada’s largest cities have been disproportionately impacted as high population densities and dependency on mass transit created logistical challenges which reduced office occupancy. High office vacancy and limited rental rate growth will persist throughout the year, however, leasing activity is expected to resume as vaccination rates climb and business activity rebounds with positive net absorption, albeit muted, possible by the end of the year.

CBRE’s Leasing Intentions Index, a composite tracker of client requests for market surveys and office tours, both virtual and in-person, shows a meaningful though uneven bounce-back in office market activity since the metric bottomed in April 2020. The national index is correlated with forthcoming leasing activity, and positive net absorption is expected in the second half of 2021 as present-day discussions materialize into future transactions, although the risk of variants and further lockdowns looms large.

The post CBRE Canada Market Outlook 2021 appeared first on Commercial Office Leasing.

Key Highlights:
• Q1 2021 brought both the vaccine rollout but also renewed lockdowns, however, this time around many businesses knew how to respond, resulting in minimal job losses. Although sublet space remains an issue, the flood of space coming to the market has slowed, and some believe as 2021 progresses, and employees start returning to the office, we will start to see more sublet offerings being removed from the market.

• Despite both downtown and suburban office rents decreasing, the overall average continued to increase due to the larger proportion of higher-priced downtown space. However, asking rents have not decreased as much as expected, as landlords prefer to make concessions on shorter lease terms, free rent and other TIs. Office tenants facing renewals are asking for shorter terms in order to mitigate the uncertainty related to work-from-home vs. the return to the office.

• The industrial market continues to experience demand from all sectors, resulting in strong positive absorption this quarter, continued vacancy compression, and upward pressure on rents. Industrial development activity has increased as well, however, it will unlikely be able to keep pace with demand, resulting in a chronic shortfall of industrial space. As such, development proformas include strong rent growth expectations, which is ultimately further driving up land prices.

Colliers Canada National Market Snapshot 2021Q1

The post Canadian National Market Snapshot – Colliers Canada – Q1 2021 appeared first on Commercial Office Leasing.