Allstate Commits To Hybrid Work With Move To Coworking Memberships

Insurance giant Allstate Corp. is trading in traditional offices for flexible coworking space for a quarter of its employees.

Since shrinking its office footprint from ​​12M SF to 4M SF, the insurance provider has partnered with the coworking platform LiquidSpace to give a portion of its 54,000 corporate employees the option of having an in-person experience, without the pricey lease, Bloomberg reports.

Following the switch to remote work, the company has recorded massive savings. Spending on its office leases went from $382M in 2020 to $138M this year, according to Bloomberg.

Those cuts have included its former 232-acre campus outside of Chicago. In late 2021, Dermody Properties acquired the former headquarters, replacing the 2M SF of offices on the site with a distribution center. 

Around the same time, Allstate bought a 10-story office building in Chicago’s Loop, with thoughts of making the property its new headquarters. 

However, a little more than two years later, the insurance giant sold off the building for approximately $11M, a third of its purchase price, CoStar reported at the time.

In cities like Atlanta, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio, Allstate told Bloomberg that it has between 100 and 1,000 employees, which isn't enough to justify an office lease. In other metros, employees prefer to work from home but like to meet occasionally to collaborate with co-workers. 

“Workspaces need to be different than what they were,” Lauren DeYoung, Allstate's workplace futurist, a new role as of 2023, told Bloomberg. “The days of cubicle farms are over.”

A 10-person coworking membership costs less than a comparable office lease in 97 of 102 U.S. cities, Bloomberg reported, citing CoworkingCafe data.

Still, not all companies are on the same page. 

In a survey of 1,300 global CEOs conducted by KPMG earlier this year, 83% said they expect their companies will once again require in-person office attendance five days a week within the next three years. 

That policy is especially popular among older executives. Eighty-seven percent of those aged 60 to 69 believe prepandemic office schedules will return by 2027, compared to 75% of CEOs aged 40 to 49.