Bookmarks: 5 Interesting Articles That May Help You This Week

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners": corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. I welcome your comments on these articles.

1. Don’t Let the Pandemic Sink Your Company Culture

If you are like many of the executives with whom we’ve been talking over the last few months, you and your leadership team invested years cultivating an effective culture — one that is both strategically relevant, because it prioritizes the behaviors essential to the success of your business, and strong, in the sense that employees trust that it is real and value it. Such cultures help companies attract and retain great people and contribute to fantastic bottom-line performance.

But the Covid-19 pandemic could weaken your organization’s culture. Will your culture take a hit because people can’t meet in person, making it harder to solidify their shared beliefs? Will they be less able to use your culture as a roadmap for making good decisions in a tumultuous time? How can you continue to build and leverage your culture while your organization is operating mostly remotely?

Research has shown that even when you create a culture that is strategically aligned and strong (that is, widely shared and intensely valued), it won’t help you over the long run unless you also develop a culture that is adaptive in real time. In fact, a study that one of us (Jenny) conducted found that organizations that were strategically aligned, strong, and had built in the capacity to adapt quickly to dynamic environments earned 15% more in annual revenue compared to those in the same industry that were less adaptable.

2. Outdoor Space Is the Hottest New Office Feature

Outdoor spaces have proven to be safer than indoor ones since the risk of HVAC systems recirculating disease particles is absent and people have more room to stay spread out.

So why shouldn’t we invest in outdoor spaces for our offices? The value of these investments would likely last long past the pandemic. According to a survey from outdoor-focused clothing company L.L. Bean in partnership with Industrious, 86 percent of surveyed respondents want to be outside more during their workday.

Some forward thinking landlords are already throwing their money out the window. One of Vornado’s new properties, the 172,700 square foot 512 W 22nd office buildings in New York City, has a substantial amount of outdoor space on site. According to David Greenbaum, Vornado’s New York division President, “Every floor in the building has an outdoor space attached to it.” Plenty of other offices have taken the same approach, too, from tech companies to co-working spaces.

3. 'The Robots Are Coming': Hotels Adjust To New Reality With Some Unusual Tools

When the Hôtel Monville in Montreal opened in 2018, it was one of the first hotels in Canada that offered a truly contactless visitor experience. Guests at the 269-room hotel could check in via the hotel's app or website or at any of the four check-in kiosks in the lobby of the hotel. If a guest forgot a toothbrush, wanted an extra towel or ordered room service, a 3-foot-tall robot would deliver the item straight to their room.

"From the moment you walk into the hotel, we offer a full contactless experience," Hôtel Monville Director of Sales and Marketing Jean-Cédric Callies said. "Guests loved that they could check in [in] 30 to 45 seconds and go straight to their room and get items without interacting with anyone."

In the midst of the coronavirus, reviewers have praised the contactless experience they've encountered at the hotel, Callies said. Hôtel Monville is one of several hoteliers looking into the further use of robots as a way to bring gun-shy visitors back to their hotels.

4. 2020 Hot 100 Retailers

The NRF Hot 100 Retailers, an annual ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing retail companies, is susceptible to volatility related to mergers and acquisitions, and this year appears to be more stable than the Top 100 Retailers, where mainstays are being battered by the changes wrought by the coronavirus.

The Hot 100 report provides as much of a look at the future of retailing as pundits can predict for a post-coronavirus world. The hottest retailers, based on last year’s sales volumes, include ecommerce merchants, food sellers and some bricks-and-mortar operators that feature treasure hunt-style shopping experiences.

These retail formats are consistent with those said to be best equipped to survive and thrive in the wake of COVID-19 restrictions and well into the future.

5. More Businesses Are Selling Their Warehouses For Quick Liquidity

For decades, companies looking to give themselves a financial cushion during periods of economic uncertainty have sold their headquarters buildings to a third party and leased the property back from the new owner.

As the coronavirus pandemic has thrown many businesses' finances into disarray, these sale-leasebacks are becoming increasingly popular in the industrial real estate market.

About 13% of the country's sale-leaseback volume came from industrial deals in the second quarter, according to CoStar data, such as Big Lots’ $725M sale of its four distribution centers and cash-strapped grocery chain SuperValu’s unloading of eight distribution centers for $445M. A year earlier, the share of industrial in sale-leaseback deals was 4.7%.

Your success blesses others. I wish you a great a hugely impactful week!

Ken Ashley