Now more than ever, the office experience is being reimagined as many employees have spent recent years working from home. At the beginning of the pandemic, this abrupt shift to the home office may have been uncomfortable, however, many employees have since received stipends to upgrade their personal workspaces and have become acquainted with their home offices. For office landlords like Aspen Properties, it is important to mimic that same comfort level in office buildings and redefine what office space can be in the post-pandemic world. Although employees likely won’t be permitted to wear their pyjamas to work anytime soon, there are several ways that we can reduce everyday tenant pain points. We’ve identified 5 key points of friction that tenants have in the office and how to mitigate them:
#1 Inefficient or Inflexible Workspaces
Recent workplaces changes have created a shift towards flexible workspaces. We conducted a poll on our social media channels, asking our audience what their biggest workspace pain point is and found that 63% of respondents believe inefficient workspaces to be the biggest point of contention. Office tenants are looking for a change of scenery throughout the day and more space around them. Sitting in stuffy, cubicle-dense offices all day long is no longer desirable.
Creating an environment where employees can work from several places other than their assigned desk can help address inflexibility. Some examples of this are quiet rooms for deep work, lounge areas for relaxation, or phone booths and zoom rooms for private calls. Outside of company offices, having public spaces within the building to work such as libraries, cafes, and lounge areas are also a great addition to diversify the workspace options available to employees.
Here is an example of how the Ampersand lobby incorporates various workspaces
#2 Wrong Temperature
For some reason, the office temperature is a never-ending battle. When employees worked from home, they could adjust the temperature to their liking, in contrast to office places where someone is always too hot or cold. Research shows that temperature does impact productivity – when you are comfortable in your setting you can focus on the work at hand. Although it is difficult to satisfy everyone, a conscious effort to mitigate the issue by Property Managers goes a long way. Consulting an HVAC professional is a common way of ensuring that the overall office temperature is neutral, and that energy efficiency is optimized.
There is also an emergence of PropTech applications that are currently being trialed to provide separate temperature control for individual offices.
Flexible workspaces can also aid in solving this issue by adding collaborative workspaces in sun-facing areas around the office or having breakout rooms in air-conditioned areas. Clarifying an overall expectation of office temperature and allowing employees to adjust to meet their own levels of comfortably is also advisable.
#3 Poor Lighting
According to The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety lighting plays a role in office ergonomics as it can affect productivity where clarity and exactness is integral to the work and directly impacts employee health in terms of eye strains and headaches. Promoting exposure to natural light has both psychological and physiological benefits to employees. Building owners can optimize natural light by ensuring employee workspaces are within proximity to windows.
PropTech applications like Caret are also helping to mitigate lighting issues by streamlining the process of submitting service requests for burnt out or flickering lights. Employees can submit issues through the mobile app that notifies building operators of the issue and provides a status on the request.
#4 Technical Issues
Employees expect to come into work and have high-quality internet connections. The acceleration of software adoption over the pandemic means that many of our tenant’s clients or hybrid employees are reliant on web-conferencing and mobile work management platforms. Workplace changes such as the emergence of shared workspaces and the hybrid work have also surged the demand for advanced connectivity infrastructure.
WiredScore reported that 87% of tenants surveyed in metropolitan areas ranked internet connectivity as the most important factor in leasing office space (next to location at #1).
Commercial real estate owners can stay ahead of the game by adding fiber connection and staying on top of modern networks. Understanding what type of connectivity your tenants require and providing a wide range of options such as shared connectivity and dark fiber connections can help satisfy diverging tenant requirements.
#5 Lack of Amenities
Office owners can greatly enhance the ways in which employees stay engaged and energized at work. Creating spaces that promote work-life separation, encourage collaboration, and enable employees to take care of their well-being can help them stay productive and motivated throughout the workday. Amenities give employees a secondary reason to make the commute to the office aside from their daily work tasks and can also aid in preventing employee burnout.
Aspen Properties has created a portfolio of premium tenant amenities in the Aspen Club, where Aspen tenants can access amenities in any Aspen building. Some amenities within the Aspen Club include state-of-the-art fitness centres, wellness/meditation rooms, golf simulators, tenant lounges, games rooms, social stairs, and dog patios. The online booking platform on the Aspen app makes it easy for tenants to book amenities in advance and makes them more accessible to tenants.
Conclusion
Reducing the small, annoying touch-points that employees frequently face can help office owners attract valuable occupants in the long-term and improves productivity and workplace satisfaction.