Power Reads: 5 Interesting Articles That Will Help You This Week

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in leadership and the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners": corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. Each day we can become a better version of ourselves.

1. To Get People Back in the Office, Make It Social

While people around the world have been returning to restaurants, concerts, and travel, there’s one place many of them aren’t going: the office. Many business leaders who craved, demanded, or expected a five-day-a-week, nine-to-five return to office (RTO) have been disappointed, and in some cases even had to roll back mandates.

“In today’s hybrid world, “work” is increasingly something people do, not a place they go. There’s no going back to 2019, so it’s time to rethink the role of the office — for both workers and businesses.”

Empowered, energized employees drive competitive advantage. But so far, business leaders have had more questions than answers about exactly how the office can best support and engage their people in a hybrid world. Our latest research at Microsoft reveals the answer may lie in what I believe should be front and center for every leader: reconnecting employees.

2. Bosses Are Winning The Battle To Get Workers Back To The Office

In the ongoing battle between bosses and workers over returning to the office, recent data shows more people are trudging back to the workplace.

“In the first week following Labor Day, office usage in 10 major metro areas neared 50% of 2020’s pre-pandemic attendance, reports Kastle Systems, a key-card property management company that tracks entries into office buildings. There were more workers in the office last week than there have been since the pandemic started. However, in-office attendance is still lower than what it was before the virus outbreak.”

The in-office numbers may be low since Kastle’s data doesn’t include many of the city’s biggest real estate owners, including large law firms, banks, financial services and Wall Street firms.

3. The Mall-Buying Bottom-Feeder Has His Sights Set On Manhattan's Older Office Buildings

Namdar Realty Group, which has amassed a nationwide portfolio of unwanted malls, is moving in on Manhattan’s worn-out office buildings.

“Namdar’s joint venture with Empire Capital Holdings has spent almost $180M acquiring two old Manhattan office towers in the last two months, swooping in on distressed assets as other real estate investors back away from the borough’s office market — and he plans to buy more, Bloomberg reports.”

Namdar and Empire bought the 13-story, 64-year-old 830 Third Ave. office building for $72M this month after acquiring 345 Seventh Ave., which is 24 stories high and more than 90 years old, for $107M last September. The buildings were purchased for less than $500 per SF — far lower than the average Manhattan office price of $896 per SF, which is down over 10% from its 2019 peak, according to MSCI Real Assets data as reported by Bloomberg.

4. The Next Wave of Robots is Coming to Office Buildings

As the return to office debate rages on around the world, a fleet of robots was unleashed in a cutting-edge office building near Seoul, South Korea, ready to assist human co-workers with coffee requests, lunch deliveries, and package retrieval. Located in the town of Pangyo, a tech hub about 14 miles south of the country’s capital Seoul, a building called 1784 was launched by South Korean tech giant Naver as a “testbed” office building with 100 service robots. “A place where humans work in harmony with robots,” Naver states on the building’s website. Along with a host of smart tech features, the building will be home to self-driving robots with 5G network capabilities and even the world’s first elevator just for robots. 

“Robots in the office aren’t necessarily new. Since the late 1970s, there have been robots that deliver mail in many large corporate offices around the country. But lately, they have been emerging in other real estate sectors. Robotic construction has been touted as a huge area for growth over the next several years. In multifamily buildings, robotic furniture made a splash as a way to reconfigure small spaces quickly, and in industrial and manufacturing settings, robotics are more in demand than ever, fueled by labor shortages and a desire to keep workers out of harm’s way. But in the office, the question of whether we will see widespread adoption of robots mingling among office workers is one without a clear answer. ”

While robots are starting to pop up in office buildings in Asia and Europe, in the US, it hasn’t been as popular. However, with more incentive than ever these days for landlords to upgrade and innovate their properties in order to compete for tenants, could this be something to set them apart?

5. More workers are back in offices. It’s still nothing like before.

The early results are in: The return to work is working. Office occupancy hit a pandemic high over the last week according to data tracked by Kastle Systems, a security company, with 10 of the country’s top metropolitan areas seeing an average of 47.5 percent of workers swiping into offices compared with pre-pandemic levels.

“That’s up more than nearly 4 percent from the week before Labor Day, when bosses drew the latest line with the push to return to offices. At the same time last year, the national average was less than 31 percent.”

Wednesday of last week was the busiest yet across the country, with the national average creeping up to 54.5 percent of pre-pandemic levels, the highest since early 2020 according to Kastle.

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