Office space issues start to loom
Some may return, others may stay remote
The grand work-fromhome experiment of the past year is giving way to a massive reconfiguration of real estate.
Cube farms are being denuded to make way for open spaces that encourage collaboration and social distancing. Rolling monitors and whiteboards on wheels are replacing inflexible and stuffy meeting rooms. And some employees want to continue working at home, at least some of the time, even when offices can reopen.
Many business leaders and owners, after seeing their workers succeed away from the office, have been pondering questions about space. In recent years, some companies spent a lot of money giving their offices more appeal to attract workers in what was an ultratight labor market before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was kind of bad timing for us because we had just moved into this beautiful new office space, which we created for our employees, and now our employees are very comfortable working at home,” said Cale Johnston, CEO of ClickSwitch, a financial-tech firm in Minneapolis. “And I don’t think they ever want to come back to the office.”
Competition for top recruits was a major reason Minneapolis-based Qumu Corp. decided last year to cut out of its lease at its North Loop headquarters, shut down offices in England and India and go to fully remote work.
“It opens up so many doors for us,” said Jason Karp, Qumu’s chief commercial officer. “We’re not limited to a specific geography for recruiting. We are a global market now.”
Securian Financial was in the middle of office redesign at its downtown St. Paul headquarters when the pandemic forced its workers home. With lessons learned over the past year, Securian has tweaked its original designs. It added equipment in about 70 rooms to accommodate video conferences with remote workers. The building also has upgraded airflow and filtration systems.
The old floors are a typical maze of beige office cubicles. A remodeled sixth floor is brighter and more open, with more collaborative work spaces. But it may be awhile before employees see it themselves.
“When we think about the future, I am appreciative that we will have additional flexibility,” said Chris Hilger, Securian’s chief executive. “But that doesn’t mean all of a sudden we are going to be asking everyone to come back to the office. We are going to take a thoughtful, incremental approach.”
Likewise, workers at Prime Therapeutics in the Twin Cities won’t be testing out the hub-and-home approach for at least several more months. But Erin
Feigal, Prime Therapeutic’s chief human resources officer, said the company has been “easing into” more flexible working arrangements for the past seven years or more, Feigal said, and the hub-andhome policy is the next iteration.
These workers quickly adjusted to life without desks with their names on them, she said. And they’ve come to appreciate the beauty and flexibility of their space.
“It’s pushing us to think differently about how we work,” Feigal said. “It doesn’t have to be so stationary with all of your things around you.”