Welcome to the topic “The ROI Of Leasing Traditional Office Space”
There are many valid reasons for why businesses began to reconsider their need for traditional office space over the last few years. The American workforce has had a major shift in perspective regarding work-life balance; the state of working underwent a complete transformation in terms of communication and productivity; and the focus on human capital and putting people first has caused businesses to change their practices to value the needs and desires of their workforce more.
Understandably, many companies have chosen to allow their workforce to continue working remotely to ensure customer and staff safety as well as help reduce overhead expenses. However, now that things have settled for businesses, a lot of companies have started wondering if leasing traditional office space is still worth the investment it once was.
Yes, remote working options and teleconferencing technology has incredible workplace benefits. However, the return on investment for traditional office space is becoming more valuable as company executives realize how having people in the workplace affects their branding, values, culture, and bottom line.
Working from home has its perks, but it cannot undermine the intrinsic benefits of traditional office space.
The ROI Of Traditional Office Space
Leasing traditional office space increases a company’s overhead budget, but the money spent on overhead is returned 2x or more in terms of the productivity and employee retention gained through having a traditional office space.
Having people come into an office setting provides company workforces with better training, collaboration, relationships, productivity, teamwork, mentorship, operations, and much more.
While it’s important to acknowledge that not every employee will value the opportunity to be back in-person, the overall health of the company must remain one of the top priorities for everyone employed there. Furthermore, the options for making employees feel welcome and more engaged in the workplace are endless, and such options should be used as a ‘people first’ approach to help increase the long term success of the business.
Increased Motivation For People To Come Back To Work
As the hype of ‘working from home’ has been diminished by feelings of restlessness and the need for more work-life separation – people are craving an opportunity to leave their home and get back out amongst people.
Many workers no longer want to remain confined to the four walls of their house.
Social interaction is a vital component of life, and denying it tends to pave the way for many issues that can end up negatively affecting employee work life.
Creating an office space that invites your employees back into a professional community and network environment will motivate them to get back into peak performance mode and do wonders for the company’s workforce morale.
Easy Mentoring and Management
It’s challenging to bring team members together in collaborative synergy virtually. When people are physically separated, it becomes more difficult to know when someone is struggling and in need of assistance.
This delay, and lack of interpersonal connection has the tendency to stunt the professional growth of younger team members and prevents them from making the most of the experience of their older colleagues.
The most significant ROI of office space is that training new team members and cross-training current team members is easier and more effective. Being together in the workplace fosters a sense of comradery between employees and naturally lends itself to developing mentorships for faster and more productive professional growth.
Creating Meaningful Relationships
Working remotely tends to cause more insolation than cohesion, and drastically affects the opportunity and time allowance to build meaningful relationships. The absence of ‘water-cooler’ talk might seem like a positive at first, but those mundane conversations around the water-cooler lead to stronger relationships within the workplace and translate in an increased sense of company loyalty for your workforce. The natural flow of serendipitous connections and ideas that arise from frequent employee interactions help increase a company’s creativity and innovation factors.
Utilizing traditional office space helps ensure that your employees have a means for daily interpersonal connection, which in turn helps teams come together to work towards a unified goal that will fuel their passion and motivation for their work and roles in the company.
Reconnecting with team members will pave the way for meaningful discussions, increased collaboration, and produce an overall boost in employee morale.
Better Teamwork
Team meetings also tend to be more productive when everyone participates in person. When meetings are conducted online, often, only one person is able to talk while the others listen and often get distracted with emails, direct messages, home tasks, and other things that compete for their attention.
On the other hand, in-person meetings in an office space allow for different conversations to flow simultaneously. There are no distractions, so your team is entirely focused on the topic at hand, ensuring better results. Various behavioral studies show that working together as a team in-person leads to better collaboration and productivity.
Promote Company Culture
A business that has not established a strong company culture cannot sustain itself for long-term success. And it’s nearly impossible to enforce any kind of company culture when much of the workforce is working remotely.
This is where you can potentially get the biggest return on investment for your office space.
Remember that your office space is more than just a place where everyone works. It’s the ultimate representation of everything that your business stands for and believes in. By leasing traditional office space, you make sure that your company has a place where its culture is practiced and shared daily and where it can grow with the company.
Without a physical office presence, employees will struggle to comprehend the intrinsic value of the company culture and will lack the foundational understanding of the company’s true purpose. This leads to the erosion of your company’s values and a decrease in employee morale and loyalty/ retention.
Smooth Operation
Things move faster and smoother when everyone is present in the same place at the same time. In a physical office space, when an employee has a question, he can ask the question to the relevant person by either turning to him or stepping into the appropriate office.
This simple act of being able to physically go to someone for help will ensure that all queries are addressed and eliminate chances of misunderstandings so that no doubts remain – thus providing better training.
However, when working remotely there are unnecessary delays in communication if team members are not working together on the same project at the same time. To request help, team members often must email their questions to others and wait for responses – which can lag operations. That, or they may feel their question does not warrant a formal email and just go without asking altogether.
When working in an office space, they could simply head to someone’s office and get things moving more quickly and in a more casual and comfortable way.
The ROI of Traditional Office Space as Understood By All
Nearly all major corporations and organizations worldwide are encouraging their workers to get back to the office. Naturally, they have figured out the return on investment of office space far outweighs any overhead expenses incurred.
Most large companies in the USA want their employees to come back to a traditional office working environment. This is because company executives have realized that their workforce is much more productive when working from the office than from home. The office space also ensures better workplace culture enforcement, dissemination of information, training, mentorship, and much more. This is true for nearly all successful businesses.
The software company Salesforce is stating that their profits increase significantly when their employees are working together in the office. Therefore, they are now mandating more in-person workdays compared to remote workdays and increasing workplace policies that further encourage people to come into the office.
Similarly, businesses like Amazon, Meta, Tesla, and Twitter have also started working actively to get their workforce back in the office. Even though companies are downsizing and cutting costs, they still realize the incredible value in having their employees come together to perform tasks, hold meetings, and work collaboratively.
Traditional office space is vital for your business to thrive and flourish and is also beneficial for your employees long-term career success as well.
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