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.Asking the Barber If You Need A Haircut

The saying is used in different ways for different industries. Every surgeon sees a scalpel and every contractors’ hammer is looking for a nail.

How does this apply to commercial real estate you might rightly ask? Well in at least two ways. Let’s talk about jobs first. Here are some recent headlines;

“Millions Face Unemployment and Uncertainty” – CBS News

“April Unemployment Rate Rose to 14.7%” – WSJ

“Great Depression of 2020? US Jobless is at Least 20% or Worse” – MarketWatch

But here’s the thing; this unemployment problem and the parallel economic carnage were NOT caused by financial or credit issues like the Great Depression or the Great Recession. The economy was easing before the stay at home orders were issued in March. But the real purchase point of the downturn was caused by a VIRUS that we will defeat.

So those scary headlines talking about record unemployment should be rather obvious and a little less scary with perspective. And yes, I saw the remarks by Fed Chairman Powell yesterday. His call to action is a data point and one I hope our Congress will pay attention to.

2. Push For Supply Chain Resilience, Reshoring Likely To Boost Industrial CRE

The coronavirus pandemic has left hundreds of U.S. manufacturers examining how to bring at least some of their operations and real estate footprints home.

Nearly two-thirds of North American manufacturers say they are likely to bring production and sourcing back to the continent, a new survey by industrial data and tech company Thomas shows. The company surveyed over 1,000 of the continent's manufacturing and industrial suppliers, with the help of business-to-business data gathered on Thomasnet.com.

The U.S. manufacturing sector had seen a minor return stateside in recent years, with big domestic companies like Wal-Mart and Brooks Brothers bringing some operations back to the U.S., or "reshoring.”

3. Reopening the Coronavirus-Era Office: One-Person Elevators, No Cafeterias

Welcome back to work. The corporate cafeteria is closed. The coffee makers are unplugged. And the desks are separated by plastic.

Every part of office life is being re-examined in the era of Covid-19. When employees file back into American workplaces—some wearing masks—many will find the office transformed, human-resources and real-estate executives say.

Elevators may only take one person at a time. Desks, once tightly packed in open floor plans, will be spread apart, with some covered by plastic shields and chairs atop disposable pads to catch germs. The beer taps, snack containers, coffee bars and elaborate gyms and showers that once set high-dollar, white-collar environments apart will likely remain closed to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Many changes won’t go away until the virus does.

4. Someday we’ll return to the office. It’ll be nothing like we’ve seen before

When you finally head back to the office, it won’t be like you remember it.

Physical distancing, from the garage to the elevator to the break room, promises to help make the pending mass return to the workplace both reassuring and maddening as people learn to work together again while remaining six feet apart.

Signs of separation will abound: decals on elevator floors showing you where to stand, arrows to route foot traffic in one direction, chairs removed from conference rooms and other popular gathering places.

5. CIOs Spearhead Well-Being Initiatives to Make Remote Work Less Remote

Chief information officers are stepping beyond their traditional roles to help spearhead employee-focused mental health and well-being initiatives during the coronavirus pandemic.

After deploying the tools to support remote work, IT leaders from companies including International Business Machines Corp., Syngenta AG and SurveyMonkey now see their job as helping to manage and monitor how working from home affects a now distant workforce.

IT leaders are having more frequent, casual virtual meetings with their own teams and sending email surveys to gauge employee well-being across the company. They also are enabling the use of tools for workers to create mental-health-focused online portals and helping to ensure employees have an appropriate work-life balance.

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

Ken Ashley