Some Types of Office Tenants are Returning Faster Than Others
Some industries face constraints in how much of their work can be done from home.
June 22, 2020 | Patricia Kirk | National Real Estate Investor
An abrupt shift to remote working caused by the pandemic demonstrated that the bulk of office workers can work productively from home (at least during the initial three-month experiment). This has prompted some corporate leaders to postpone the return to the office until next year or re-evaluate the use of traditional offices entirely.
There are some jobs, however, that, for various reasons, are best done on-site. For example, industries where critical supply chain, manufacturing or agriculture are the primary business are requiring certain support employees to return to the office to ensure that production continuity and logistics demands are met, says Samantha Fisher, director of workplace strategies at real estate services firm Transwestern.
Banking is another sector that seems to be facing more pressure to get key personnel back to the office. JPMorgan, for example, began bringing staff who volunteered to return to the firm’s Manhattan office, starting with 20 percent of sales and trading staff, last week, reports Bloomberg. The firm plans to ramp that up to 50 percent of sales and trading staff by mid-July. Other Wall Street firms announcing plans to bring employees back to the office include Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which will bring an initial group of employees to its major U.S. locations on June 22, and Citigroup Inc., which plans to have 5 percent of its staff back in offices in early July.
