At Equiem, we ran a survey of our end-users, a community of 175,000 occupiers representing 9,000 companies in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. The questions covered the impact of COVID-19 on productivity, remote work environment and thoughts on returning to work. A question was, “Once the restrictions are lifted, what reason will prompt you to return to the office?” The majority (60%) of tenants said they’d “only return when it felt safe, as they felt just as productive at home.” A further 7% said they “would only go to the office for critical meetings.” That’s two-thirds of your tenant population not returning to buildings until certain criteria are met.
This raises the question, “What must landlords focus on to return tenants back to buildings?” In addition to our survey, we interviewed 20-plus landlords and property managers. We also reached out to landlords in Asia, who were ahead of the COVID-19 curve and welcoming tenants back, on their approach, challenges and best practices. From that data, we believe landlords should focus on three areas:
Engage Remotely
First, continue to engage tenants remotely. According to our survey, 72% of office buildings currently have less than 10% occupancy. Even as lockdown eases, our data indicate that a large percentage will remain remote, as companies look to maintain social distancing guidelines and limit office density. For landlords, we believe this isn’t the time to disappear. In fact, it’s a great opportunity to continue communications with tenants by providing updates on steps being taken to make buildings safer, offering digital programming services and providing virtual activities to improve their well-being and productivity. This was the focus of our Remote platform, which we launched in March.
One of our clients, Michael Purcell, director at JLL (U.K.), who launched Remote had this feedback: “Equiem’s platform has become even more important in finding ways to connect people without physical contact. It’s allowed us to communicate with our tenants as they worked remotely, even as our parks and buildings became extremely quiet during the lockdown. Equiem also launched and implemented remote programming — digital content, activations and events — providing a much-needed stimulus to tenants during a period when our reception team was furloughed.”
Build Trust
Second, landlords must build trust. Seventy percent of our surveyed occupiers believe the office provides a medium to high risk of contracting COVID-19, in contrast to working from home, which 96% believed offered low to very low risk. From our data, one key action for landlords to ease occupier concerns is to have frequent communication. In a question on how Equiem’s platform can best support them for their return to work, the top answer from occupiers was “regular updates and notifications about building policies.”
Clear communication is key.
“Foroffices to survive in a post-COVID pandemic world, people must feel safe,” said Christopher Rising, CEO of Rising Realty Partners in Los Angeles. “The way you feel safe is you over-communicate.”
Taking communications further, we launched “Smart” dashboards to track lobby traffic, building density, air quality and more. With live data available to landlords and tenants, we hope this provides more transparency to help occupants feel safe.
Adapt Operations
Third, landlords need to adapt operations. One key issue to solve is entry and exit procedures. Eighty percent of occupiers in our survey cited “zero-touch/automatic doors” as important when returning to the office, while 62% of occupiers also want an “easy and quick online onboarding guide.” We launched touchless entry, visitor management and retail ordering , as well as interactive onboarding guides as part of our Return to Workplace solution. The onboarding guides have had incredible uptake, with 100% of our U.S. clients adopting and 50 buildings in the U.S. rolling them out.
Another popular feature we released is the ability for occupiers to book their entry to the building. Combined with our Smart dashboards, occupants can make informed decisions on when to enter or exit the building.
There are many challenges ahead. By engaging with occupiers remotely, building trust through communication and adapting operations to assuage concerns, landlords can build confidence and convince occupiers to return to their buildings.
Gabrielle McMillan
CEO, Equiem
gabrielle.mcmillan@getequiem.com
646-239-1938
