The huge, decked-out corner office for executives was already dying. The pandemic may have delivered a final blow.
The big picture: As hybrid and remote work become more common, the office is transforming from a place for focused work to a destination for collaboration. Meeting rooms and open plan café-like seating areas are replacing offices — and where you sit and work no longer denotes your place in the hierarchy.
By the numbers: Some 60% of firms are re-designing their offices for the post-pandemic era, according to a new report from the commercial real estate firm CBRE, which surveyed large companies around the world. Of those companies, a quarter are eliminating private offices entirely.
- The firms that are holding onto private offices are downsizing them. Around 80% are limiting them to 149 square feet or smaller.
"People are choosing to do their heads-down work at home," says CBRE's Susan Wasmund, the lead author of the report. "They want to come back to collaborate, and they want to come back for team events."
- As the office is revamped for teamwork, companies are giving the square footage they're taking away from private offices to meeting rooms of all shapes and sizes.
- And they're adding amenities to make workers' time in the office worthwhile. CBRE looked specifically at firms' headquarters and found that 58% are building auditoriums, 31% have outdoor spaces, and 69% have onsite baristas or coffee shops.
Yes, but: "Private office space will never totally go away," says Wasmund....
- Traditional companies like investment banks and law firms will likely be the last holdouts, retaining some aspects of