JLL Launches New Service To Capitalize On Hybrid Office Schedules

Trendsetting tech companies believe that the post-pandemic future of office work will be a hybrid model of days in a central office and days at home, according to a new survey of over 120 companies by Savills. The forecast trend has prompted one real estate giant to launch a service that aims to capitalize on it.

Seventy-three percent of the respondent companies said that their employees will be in centralized offices at least three days a week, while very few (4%) expect all their workers to be required to show up in person five days a week.

There isn't a consensus yet on whether companies or their employees will formulate the new hybrid schedules. Some 61% of respondents said that the decision is still under consideration.

A vast majority of companies (79%) are allowing some employees to relocate permanently away from their previously assigned office while 67% said that hoteling will be more important than it was before 2020. Still, common space isn't dead: 45% told Savills that collaboration spaces will be more important than they were pre-pandemic.

As companies devise their new normal schedules, the impact of the hybridization of work on office leasing patterns isn't clear yet. 

The results of the survey represented some shifts in attitude on that question compared to earlier Savills surveys, taken last year when the end of the coronavirus pandemic wasn't in sight. In October, the number of companies expecting to need less office space over the next 12 to 18 months was 82%; in March, only 47% of the respondents indicated the same feeling.

"While working from home will become more permanent in American business, it needs to work for both the company and its clients,” JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon wrote earlier this month in a letter to shareholders.

Dimon predicted that the bank will need less real estate in the future, about 60 seats for every 100 workers, but that in some locations — such as Chase's new headquarters in New York — there will be more workers than before the pandemic.

JLL is seeking to capitalize on the hybridization trend by rolling out a new service it calls Experience/Anywhere, which the company bills as a way for office users to optimize their new hybrid work models. 

"The shift to the hybrid workplace changes more than the form and function of offices; it also changes how employees experience work," JLL Technologies Chief Product Officer Sharad Rastogi said in a statement. "... [O]ur clients need to navigate this shift and transform the way organizations foster culture, collaboration and innovation — no matter where work takes place."

Experience/Anywhere has two central components, according to JLL. One is the Program Management Office, which helps companies formulate hybrid workplace strategies and provisioning policies. The other is The Hub, which offers employees well-being resources and practical conveniences, such as help in obtaining home office furniture and supplies.