In this supposed work-from-home era, isn’t it strange that transaction after new real estate transaction is being reported? Of an international behemoth leasing millions of square feet in a Bengaluru office park. Of three floors of a Smart building in Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex being rented for a 10-year period by an Indian corporate’s headquarters. Of eager corporate tenants snapping up offices in business centres that have sprung up in Tier II cities.
Tired of Zoom meetings and working in silos, organisations across industries have started calling employees back to work. The hunger for creative collaboration that is possible only with work-from-office has reinvigorated the corporate real estate (CRE) sector, where the hybrid model includes at least a few days of working from an office space every week.
While everyone had predicted a drastic shrinkage of the CRE space, the converse has happened. Social distancing now underlines office design; the need for this has upped the need for space to accommodate fewer employees.
All this has driven the demand for data: of the number of office occupants, their behaviour, preferences, movement and more. Along with this, corporates are leaving no stone unturned to safeguard employee health at the workplace.
Perhaps no FM sector is seeing more advanced and extensive investment in hygiene than this one. To understand its choices, we asked two CRE experts to share what they have introduced, or plan to introduce, at their own properties.