Mark McCord, Vice President, Real Estate & Facilities, Seattle Genetics
“Before the pandemic, not many companies had work-from-home policies.”
COVID-19 is a big topic in the real estate world. From my vantage point, two major shifts are taking place. The first involves the safety of the workplace. Corporate real estate professionals are asking themselves, “Are we doing everything possible to ensure that staff feel safe in the office when they return to that environment?”
The other shift involves the prevalence of working from home. Before the pandemic, not many companies had work-from-home policies. For example, our company did not have a work-from-home policy formalized, and remote work was generally not well received until the pandemic hit. As we went into the pandemic and people had to work from home, I think our company realized that people
continued to be productive. As a result, we have not had to shift our corporate priorities as much as we expected. That came as a bit of a surprise to us as a company.
Businesses are coming to the realization that people can work from home and are productive in that setting. So, in light of this temporary transition to a remote workforce, many of my peers are asking themselves, “What does the rise in working from home mean for our real estate footprint?”
This is an excerpt from 7 Experts on Workplace Transformation. The eBook was generously sponsored by Iron Mountain.
