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Every Major Company Reducing Office Space: 2020-2023 [buildremote.co]

This article was updated in April 2023 and shows major U.S. businesses have recognized...

THREE HIGH IMPACT FACTORS:

  1. The high facilities lease expense savings - the lease expense savings are huge
  2. Technology has given better tools - Businesses have realized after the pandemic that work can be done and done well with remote working. Communication and collaboration technology along with performance measurement tools have been made available, browser based and cloud technology to work from anywhere have made it easier to work remotely.
  3. Employee preference to balance work and life is rising - . Except for JP Morgan in New York, almost all businesses have either preferred "Remote First" or "Hybrid" work models. The labor shortage in the U.S. has kind of forced businesses to adjust to worker expectations.

WHAT ABOUT THE GOVERNMENTS?
The governments have been weary of the remote working trend for three reasons.

  1. Governments don't want people spending to reduce - Governments want their thousands and millions of employees to go on the road, go to lunches, go fill gas in various parts, spend more on food, entertainment, commute, tolls, generate various tax revenue to add to to the economy. People and businesses drive the economy. Allowing them to work from home hurts economy in their stupid view.
  2. Governments don't have a bottom line - They have the tax and fee revenues nearly guaranteed every year. They do not have a need to cut costs due to the falling bottom line. The Congress and legislatures give them funding year after year - it is almost a cookie cutter task year after year or biennium after biennium.
  3. Governments are always slow to catch up - they are always behind the efficiencies, technology, proactive approach and lean operations style of private businesses. I have worked with governments and the ignorance does not stop baffling me.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
I believe several changes are bound to happen:

  1. Remote work will increase - There is no doubt that this will increase and even the hybrid model will be reduced to the minimum. Younger workforce has made abundantly clear with the labor shortage that they do not want to show up at 9, obtain permission to leave 10 minutes early, report to several oversight people and work in that dreaded corporate plantation any longer. Several businesses have reported that employee absenteeism has decreased, efficiencies have increased, work-life balance has improved etc. Every person sitting in the commute every day is wishing they somehow did something else for years. I am surprised that employers like JP Morgan are not reading into it.
  2. Downtown real estate will decline more - the death of shiny office buildings has begun and now will accelerate. Downtowns as we knew them will cease to exist. Downtowns will be a place for recreation, entertainment, strolls, gaming arcades, restaurants, trade fair and exhibition halls, hotels and condos (converted from office buildings). The idea that the household gets up every morning in a rush to finish family affairs, getting kids ready and rushing in the crazy morning commute to downtown every day. People are tired of it.
  3. AI will bring more automation - AI will eliminate more service jobs. What happened to typists, stenographers, and proof-readers? Now secretaries, bookkeepers, personal bankers, paralegals, administrative assistants, travel agents, vocational school teachers, ticket clerks, translators, store attendants, benefits managers, media advertising roles, accounting, tax, medical back office, most legal advice-research, easy tasks are on the chopping board. More layoffs will come although they have already started. Just imagine we don't have admin assistants like we used previously to take phone calls, take messages, book appointments, type correspondence etc. Workers must re-engineer their careers and nerds will rule the future, not muscle and old work styles. Looking over a worker's shoulders from 9 to 5 to supervise with a hierarchy of a team lead, supervisor, assistant manager, manager, director will disappear. Work reporting structures will be flat.
  4. Work technology will improve - In addition to work collaboration, communication already available in plenty, more tools will arrive to measure work performance, report KPIs where working from anywhere will not need in person work supervision, meetings, collaboration etc.
  5. Outsourcing in 3rd world countries will reduce - With the increased automation of service operations that were previously outsourced to cheap labor countries will reduce. Currently this is a huge revenue for the 'outsourced to countries'. This outsourcing in 3rd world countries like the Philippines, India, Nigeria, Malaysia brought prosperity, lifted wages and industries and people's lives were built around this outsourcing since the 1990s. This will start crumbling and reverberations will go across the world and possibly lead to increased labor migration to the West.
  6. Gig economy will increase - Result-based pay is in and hourly rates are out. The younger generation does not want to join the payroll, is not worried about health benefits and is already shopping in countries like Portugal, Costa Rica, Spain for digital nomadic work life. They read, they are savvy and know how to achieve work-life balance, tax savings and health coverage all at once. They are risk takers. They will defy the employee/labor enslaving policies of the Conservatives and the chamber of commerce and are not going to fall for the 'health benefits' hook attached to payroll. Digital Nomad careers have taken off since the pandemic.

What do you think?

St-Sinner 9 Apr 27
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News just went on air today = April 28, 2023 at 3.30pm CST.

Airbnb let its workers live and work anywhere. Spoiler: They're loving it

"The business has actually never performed better since we moved to this program," says Airbnb Chief Financial Officer Dave Stephenson. "It's working really well for us."

Other companies, including tech ones, are taking a very different path. The Pew Research Center found that among people whose jobs can be done remotely, just over a third are still working from home all the time, down from 43% a year ago.

At Airbnb, all but a very few employees have a choice: They can work from home (anywhere in the country where they're based), or they can go into an Airbnb office (there are 26 of them around the world). [npr.org].

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One thought that comes to mind is the elimination of the assistants who answer calls and make appointments. Since covid and the rise of remote working and the shortage of workers, I am finding it more and more difficult to make appointments. Whether it is with a government, medical or private industry, the hold time on the phone has increased. I often find myself playing "phone tag" with many entities. I still work in person and I do not have much time at work to make those necessary calls that pertain to life and living and I certainly do not have time to hang on hold forever. So I leave a message and when they call back (if in fact they do) they leave a message and so on. I don't find this system very efficient and I wish we could go back to real human beings answering the phone and dispensing accurate and timely information.

Technology will improve, and not just cope up but in fact introduce efficiencies in the work flows. A lot of phone calling is made difficult intentionally to force you to use automated website workflows to make appointments yourself. All tools are provided. If you go to PayPal website, you will find it hard to even find a phone number to contact. However you will get a quick response to your contact us form message.

@St-Sinner I had an experieince like that with a streaming service (Peacock). There is no phone number for that service. And you are right; when I went through the "chat" feature on their website I got service. However, I have tried to "chat" with other companies and found myself going around in the same circles as I would if I was trying to call At&T's customer service (I do not recommend the experieince). Call me old fashioned, but I think every business should have a phone and real person answer it.

@MyTVC15

This is the dilemma our generation is facing. The changing technology is requiring us adjusting to and accepting the new technology. It started with online banking, check21 year ago and it will lead to no street level banks at all soon. I agree it causes frustration but I believe these are technology's growing pains and it will get better every year.

@St-Sinner I have been banking online since 1999, but I do generally resist technology. It took me years to breakdown and get and "easy pass", now I don't know how I lived without it.

@MyTVC15

One way to make it easy to date someone who can complement you in something you don't know much about. A long time ago, I dated a chef with who I went to many cooking shows, fairs, met many people and got to know about something I knew nothing about.

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