Kenny Kane is the Chief Operating Officer at FIRMSPACE.
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Since the novel coronavirus arrived in North America, the U.S. has been riding a wave of unpredictable change. Even companies without flexible policies around remote work were forced to change where and how their teams worked overnight.
Four months later, most of us are still exploring just how productive working from home can be while our offices sit empty in city centers. Millions of square feet of rented office space remain unoccupied every day, and companies are still paying to keep the lights on.
For business leaders, it’s time to reconsider your real estate spend as you look to the future of your organization. As the Covid-19 outbreak continues and companies contemplate what “returning to work” might look like, it’s worth considering the value of establishing satellite offices that can foster deep work in a safe, private environment.
Here are five ways to use satellite offices to support your larger business strategy and what that means for your bottom line.
1. Station key employees where they need to be.
While most essential business can be conducted through digital channels, that doesn’t diminish the value of having a key stakeholder on the ground. Establishing a satellite office can serve two purposes: maintaining your original business objectives and reducing your team’s potential exposure to Covid-19.
Employees who used to commute between a distant hub and their family on a weekly or biweekly basis may appreciate you utilizing a professional outpost in order to:
• Demonstrate your commitment to providing a professional workspace where your employees need it.
• Promote your company’s internal culture by giving a local team a safe space where they can be productive and lead balanced personal lives.
• Cut down on the cost of travel and the potential for incurring the larger cost associated with lost work in the event that team members should become ill during this period of increased risk.
When you provide a safe, secure office space near where your employees live, everyone benefits.
2. Improve recruitment efforts by expanding the radius of your talent pool.
With the sudden rise of remote work policies, many employers are considering hiring outside their local areas for the first time. In the event that your company is debating hiring several team members in one city, consider installing a small satellite office to demonstrate that you’re serious about your commitment and invested in growing within a new market.
Whether you’re just testing the waters in a new city or looking for a space where your leadership can do focused work in a private space near a project (or their families), opening a satellite office to accommodate a smaller portion of your team may be preferable to retrofitting and reopening a larger office space.
3. Establish a local presence to grow new partnerships.
In addition to expanding your talent pool, establishing a satellite office can demonstrate your interest in growing your presence in a new market to local businesses. If you rely on partnerships or client-based accounts, this may be a tremendous boon. While in-person meetings continue to be a rarity in most cities, the very fact of having an office in a potential partner’s local market signals investment in the local area.
In this tumultuous economy, it’s wise to start small as you test out new markets. By installing a few employees in a professional coworking (or “proworking,” as we like to call it) space, you can provide this exploratory team with all the necessary services they need, as well as the secure, private office space they need to meet their goals.
4. Give your company the flexibility to scale up or down.
One of the questions many business leaders are asking is one that might have seemed unimaginable a year ago: “Do I really need an office?” Now is the time to evaluate what was working, what wasn’t and where you can trim expenses that seemed like they were built-in to the old office model. Without the burden of contracts with snack vendors and copier repair specialists, you can save a significant amount of money. But you may still need an office.
Perhaps it’s just for the leadership team or a couple of individuals who regularly handle sensitive material. Maybe there are a few people who require a higher level of security than their home internet provides. Pare back your office space to the scale your team requires to reduce costs and improve morale.
5. Not everyone wants to work from home forever.
A recent survey by JLL found that only 4.9% of office workers would be comfortable with and prefer working from home going forward. For many in the financial services and legal industries, the home office is no substitute for their desk downtown.
If the number of employees who need office space is relatively small, the solution may be to get these teams memberships in a coworking space with contracts that don’t require the five- or 10-year commitment required for most major downtown addresses or the costs of a new build-out. By providing your team with a home base, you can build flexibility into your business plan without sacrificing the quality of their daily experience.
Move Your Business Forward
It can be hard to build out a business strategy tied to performance numbers or client goals when economic indicators seem to shift with every breaking news headline. But you can set your team up for success by giving them the basic infrastructure they need.
While we continue to navigate the effects of this pandemic, as a business leader, you must adapt your remote work policy, cancel your team’s nonessential travel plans and provide your team with safe spaces to work where you are focused on building your business.
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