The principal is back but the staff stays at home

Chesley Maddox-Dorsey is a devotee of her work as CEO of American Urban Radio Networks, having worked daily from the company’s Manhattan office for the past nine months, long before she received the Covid-19 vaccine.

As the pandemic eases and New York City reopens, Maddox-Dorsey is thinking about how to bring in his staff, many of whom have become accustomed to working from home over the past year.

“I think it’s going to be more nuanced and complicated than that,” he said, adding that getting the vaccine was just enough to convince employees to get back to office life. He observed among the CEOs, “I think it’s probably a little horrible to realize that not everyone has the same desire to come to our office.”

Across New York and other major cities, CEOs have often returned to their most powerful headquarters and offices in the environment. However, statistics suggest that employees do not feel the same attention – due to health concerns, lack of childcare or travel misery.

As of May 5, the “return to work” barometer released by Kastle Systems, the maker of office security systems, occupied only 16.3 percent of New York offices, 0.1 percent more than the previous week and a few percentage points from November.

“They’re trying to figure out how to get back in and who they can push,” said Ruth Colp-Haber, CEO of Wharton Property Advisors, about CEOs who consult with their company’s property needs.

David Rubenstein, CEO of the commercial real estate company Rubenstein Partners, appeared to agree. “Most of the CEOs are back, and they want their staff back.”

At stake are competitive perspectives on the future of the workplace and the level of flexibility in which employees can decide where and how to do their work. Or, as Colp-Haber announced in a recent note to clients, “it is likely that the class war will soon come to an office near the field of hybrid work.”

The result is of paramount importance to cities like New York, where they have built their economies on dense office towers and for investors who own those buildings. If more people work from home, the demand for offices can go down and these properties can cost much less. Already, rents are under pressure, thanks to the unwanted unwanted space that companies throw at the sublease market.

It would not be the first time a pandemic has upset the balance of work management. After the Black Death plagued Europe in the 14th century, when the fields were left in the hands of the farm, landowners were forced to provide better wages and conditions to the servants.

In recent days several companies have issued orders to return employees to the office. JPMorgan Chase it became the first major financial company to set a date, and told employees last month they expected the most in July. (It may come as no surprise that the bank is building a new 2.5-square-foot residence on Park Avenue). Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and others have followed suit.

In a recent letter to staff, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that 60 per cent of his staff would spend a few days a week in the office, 20 per cent away forever and another 20 per cent would be in the office full time.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told Yahoo Finance that 80 percent of employees expected to adopt the hybrid model, and that it would take a year or more to consolidate the situation.

In private, some executives say they tend to rotate the screws, but fear that doing so could result in tightening rivals who are willing to allow more talented staff to be more flexible.

“I would say that the head of Human Resources and the CEO of many companies are having that discussion right now,” Rubenstein said, as most employees believe the boss will return to office by September, if not sooner. By then, schools should be reopened – at least in the US and the UK – and vaccines will be available to anyone who wants them.

“I don’t think a huge change in the sea is going to happen,” he said. “He’ll want to be around when people make decisions and when things happen.”

But Phil Kirschner, a director for large companies at WeWork, and now a workplace consultant, sees more dramatic changes underway. He argued that the pandemic has only confirmed a shift to a more flexible working life that has taken years, but many top executives agreed to resign.

“The desire for greater flexibility is not new. What’s stopping is the managers who wanted to see the staff in front of them to make sure they’re productive. ”He said.

Even before the pandemic, companies competing for high-talented young workers who were changing power entered the “comfort” arms race, trying to make their offices more attractive to a new generation. Elegant coffee, yoga rooms, massages, food distribution and outdoor space in the world strictly, flexibility – the ability to work remotely for at least part of the time – is another boost.

“Companies need to work harder than ever to make it really credible to work for them,” Kirschner explained, describing the thinking of young employees as “I had to work in the office, not now. So you have to convince me why I should do it.”

Nadir Settles, a 6-square-foot supervisor at the Nuveen office in New York, has a similar view. His company is investing in the comfort of hotel offices. “Anyone who takes the best care of the environment will welcome the staff, who will win,” he said.

Others are talking about local child care and medical care. In New York, where public transportation is a particular barrier, some are discussing tax incentives for commuting.

Some jobs are more suitable for flexible working than others. A programmer, for example, can perform part of the task on his or her own – a marketing executive who constantly interacts with others.

Like many CEOs, Maddox-Dorsey says he is willing to accept more flexibility after Covid, but is concerned that they will suffer from the coordination and partnerships needed to produce and then sell radio programming.

“To get immediate feedback from team members, you need to be concerned all at once,” he said. “So if you decide what days people will join at the beginning of the week, we feel like we’re working more on individual schedules than having a common goal as a company that we try to achieve.”

He is also discovering that determining who should and should not be in the office is not correct. An older employee with deep experience and relationships in the company may not make sense to make long trips to put on a face or perform a task that they can do as easily as they can from home. Even less so if they have small children.

But not being there could lead to the removal of younger employees, who benefit from working alongside them. “It’s a personal choice, but what we as CEOs have to do is manage a lot of personal choices,” he said, “and sometimes they are diametrically opposed.”