The future of offices will require “hot desks,” contact tracing and a volunteer task force run by employees to make sure their colleagues are washing their damn hands.
SquareFoot CEO Jonathan Wasserstrum says he’s bullish on the future of office spaces because his startup helps growing companies find office space. Since COVID-19 hit, his firm has spent the past four months talking to tenants and landlords to figure out what’s next.
But as the country reopens, Wasserstrum says offices will return. Business has already resumed in some capacity, so SquareFoot is soon heading back to its office with half of its staff and physical distancing plans in place. I spoke to Wasserstrum about what it’s like to return to the office amid a pandemic, from biggest hurdles to price tag.
Transportation is the biggest hurdle
Wasserstrum said his team is returning in shifts and has asked volunteers to be a part of the first cohort. “This is not about recruiting everyone back; it’s a methodical process to enable everyone to get what they need,” he told TechCrunch. “The complicating factor here that still needs to be grappled with is how each of these individuals will get to and from the office daily.”
If you recall commuting in a pre-pandemic world, Wasserstrum’s anxiety makes sense. Some of us walked or scootered, others drove and many took public transportation. Once you add in a hybrid of these modes plus a stop in a coffee shop, the average employee has a number of risk factors, which brings up an interesting ethical conflict:
Can — or should — employers manage how employees function outside of work? In this environment, one employee can put an entire company at risk.
“We’re stopping short of telling people how and when they can come to work, but we are doing our best to educate them about best practices to maintain safety protocols even when they’re outside of the office,” he said.
A five-day work week is complicated
A return to office culture could mean employers have to stagger how many employees show up to work each day. Wasserstrum has set up a rotation for employees to come in two times per week. Counterintuitively, the SquareFoot rotation doesn’t divide people by teams but instead structured its “algorithm more around the serendipity that we see in the office, as people who might not have a reason to speak routinely can randomly run into one another,” he said.
Employment platform Hired recently released data that calculated how 2,300 tech workers are thinking about returning to the office. One of the more jarring statistics: one-third of respondents are willing to accept a reduced salary if employers permanently allowed them to work from home.
Wasserstrum said that while his team has performed impressively during the last few months, he believes that it makes sense to work together in-person when it is safe. His goal is to “default to and to prioritize working at the office,” he said. “Our business is predicated in part on interactions with experts and reactions to spaces and buildings that simply cannot be reproduced online.”
He predicted that workforces will divide into thirds: one group that wants five days a week, another that wants a few days and the remainder that prefers to come in for important meetings only. The second group seems to be the most popular option, anecdotally speaking.
But this shift requires a good amount of preparation: Where will you sit? Is that spot yours or is it shared? And who cleans the desks?
Nuts and bolts
SquareFoot launched training for all employees to return to the office, covering topics like in-person interactions, personal protective gear expectations and cleanliness. Desks will be divided into hot desks (shared spaces) and dedicated desks (for employees who plan to spend most of their week in the office).
SquareFoot also formed a volunteer task force to make sure protocols are followed. The company is also putting in measures to better trace who enters in and out of the office by using surveys and spreadsheets and tracking clock-in information.
Wasserstrum advises budgeting $2.50 per square foot to account for cleaning fees, tracing and physical distancing measures with materials and furniture.
“I’ve heard of larger companies than ours choosing to take on more enhancements to their buildings and workspaces than we have opted for, but we wanted to be mindful of budget along the way,” he said.
All this in mind, reopening offices is a line that each company needs to draw themselves by looking at the data, health guidelines and needs of their staff. The number of reported COVID-19 infections in the United States is still on the rise, but there’s one thing for certain: “This isn’t the time to move fast and break things,” Wasserstrum said. “There’s too much on the line right now.”