“People don’t like commuting, but so what?” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said a year ago.
Since then, leverage has shifted to workers as it became clear they would ditch any employer that chains them to their desks five days a week.
The Canada-based firm takes a page from the hospitality playbook. Just as hotels compete daily to provide the finest in guest satisfaction, Ivanhoé Cambridge creates seemingly bespoke experiences via workspace amenities designed to encourage personal interactions with a focus on quality, and where details matter.
“Tenant experience is not a buzzword — it’s mission critical,” says Jonathan Pearce, executive vice president of leasing and development for Ivanhoé Cambridge.
The mayor made an appearance at Goldman Sachs’ headquarters on Monday, Bloomberg reported. The town hall meeting was closed to press, but Adams planned his visit to tell employees to rely less on remote work and more on in-person operations.
The conventional wisdom is that the office will remain the fountain of company culture and anyone who wants to drink from that fountain will have to come in, at least some of the time, to see their colleagues, to collaborate with them, and to make sure their bosses at least know what they look like. Certainly, CEOs want it that way, both to justify what they are paying landlords for their high-end offices and to impart their central message to their workers.
After two years, giddy executives appear on the brink of welcoming their workforces back to the office, whether their employees are ready or not.
Google is dropping some Covid-related mandates for employees and restoring perks back to its headquarters as it prepares to bring workers back to the office.
Google Real Estate and Workplace Services VP David Radcliffe wrote an email to San Francisco Bay Area employees this week explaining that the company is relaxing some rules around vaccines, testing, social distancing and masks.
Remember the off-site meeting? For some companies, those traditional company gatherings at hotels, spas and other exotic locations are pointing the way to a new, innovative model for getting employees back to working in person.
After a nationwide surge of new coronavirus cases delayed major employers’ plans for in-person work, Goldman Sachs is readying to welcome employees to the office once again.
COO John Waldron hinted at possible plans to bring more workers back to its offices in the coming weeks. Bloomberg reported Waldron’s comments from a virtual meeting with the New Jersey State Investment Council.
“We believe we can start to put more people in our offices, and you will see us make some announcements in that regard, starting in February,” Waldron told the council. “We really deeply believe, certainly for Goldman Sachs, that we function better when we’re together.”
Office landlords have gotten creative with the wide variety of amenities they’ve dangled in front of tenants in recent months to lure companies back into buildings. Vornado Realty Trust’s latest perk for tenants at the landlord’s 33 Manhattan office properties includes free, contactless delivery by food ordering platform Sharebite, the Commercial Observer.
Meta Platforms is the latest to revise its plans for an office return amid a surge in coronavirus cases, pushing its reopening to March 28 while adding a Covid-19 booster mandate. The new return date is almost two months later than its previously planned return on Jan. 31, and the decision comes a month after the company offered an option for employees to defer returning to the office.
