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. The COVID-19 Excuse Machine

OK, let’s just get this on that table at the very top. Yes, this is a terrible time and people are suffering. Yes, some unfortunate souls are dying from the illness. Yes, millions are in trouble economically. My heart goes out to everyone in this situation and I in no way want to minimize the troubles of so many in our nation.

So, what if YOU are one of the people who are directly impacted by Covid? What if you or a close family member are sick right now? Well of course, you’ve got to deal with the crisis and get everybody as well as you can. If you’ve lost your job you’ve got to deal with that crisis. In fact, you can stop reading this blog right now and go back to much more urgent matters than my ramblings.

But, if you are not currently directly impacted, here’s my question for you… How long and how much of our lives should we give up obsessing on the issue of Covid 19?

Unfortunately, we operate in a world where people suffer from calamities of all kinds – from auto accidents to cancer, and yet we still function before March of 2020 rolled around.

2. The Implications of Working Without an Office

In early 2020, the world began what is undoubtedly the largest work-from-home experiment in history. Now, as countries reopen but Covid-19 remains a major threat, organizations are wrestling with whether and how to have workers return to their offices.

Business leaders need to be able to answer a number of questions to make these decisions. Primary among them is “What impact has working from home had on productivity and creativity?”

To help answer that question, we decided to explore how employees have fared since they began working virtually. To that end, we started surveying a diverse group of more than 600 U.S.-based white-collar employees during the second half of March and have continued to do so every two weeks since then. (This article is based on results collected through May.)

Approximately half of our respondents are women, and half are men; they hail from 43 states; nearly half are married; and more than a third have children. About 40% hold management positions. We have been asking them about their job satisfaction, work engagement, perceptions of their own performance, conflicts with colleagues, stress, negative emotions, and current living situation, among other questions. (A fuller description of the survey’s participants is at the end of this article.)

3. Love Is Medicine for Fear

We are living in a time of fear. The coronavirus pandemic has threatened our lives, health, and economy in ways most Americans have never experienced. We have no idea what the future will bring. According to the American Psychological Association’s annual “Stress in America” survey, the percentage of people in the U.S. who say that “the future of our nation is a significant source of stress” rose to 83 percent in June 2020, up from 63 percent in 2017.

But even before the pandemic, fear about the future was high and on the rise. Gallup found that the percentage of Americans who had experienced worry “during a lot of the day yesterday” rose from 36 percent to 45 percent from 2006 to 2018; similarly, feelings of stress rose from 46 percent to 55 percent. This matches my personal experience.

Given what I write about for a living, it may not be surprising that I start many conversations by asking people about their happiness. If you make the mistake of talking to me on an airplane, that’s where the conversation is going to go. In recent years, I have noticed, people have told me more and more that they are afraid.

4. Post-Pandemic CRE: Why Workspaces Will Still Matter

Enterprise and employees alike may be embracing work from home for the time being, but the post-pandemic prospects for commercial real estate remain strong. With emotions running high, our natural desire to define the “new normal” mid-crisis has us catastrophizing when we should be brainstorming.

Office real estate will indeed face hurdles as we emerge from the global pandemic. The coming economic recession will almost certainly impact demand. However, we should be careful not to overestimate the impact of WFH based on the results of a four-month forced experiment. Demand for office space, and likely some extraordinary opportunities, will return.

Looking at the current market, there is a dearth in office leasing activity. Most firms are delaying major decisions on office space until the economy finds surer footing. Class A properties in major gateway markets owned by experienced and well-capitalized sponsors have a clear advantage in attracting reasonable financing terms in today’s market.

5. The Greatest Coronavirus Risks When You Fly

It’s one of the key questions for our economy, our family relations and our basic ability to break from the routine: Is it safe to fly on an airplane?

The answer: not as safe as the airline industry would have you believe, but a lot safer than you might think.

Airplane cabins are heavily ventilated, and robust airflow, mixed with fresh air, seems to lessen the spread of the virus that causes Covid-19. Taken to its extreme, it’s the same idea that outdoors, with ample airflow and fresh air, is safer than indoors.

“Contrary to what people believe, you’re not flying through the air in a sealed tube,” says Amanda Simpson, vice president for research and technology at Airbus Americas.

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

Ken Ashley