‘Come back to work’, office landlords say
One of the nation’s biggest landlords, Charter Hall, is urging tenants to come back to their offices, saying they have been well prepared to handle the coronavirus pandemic and returning companies will have more unified workforces.
The company’s chief executive, office, Adrian Taylor, says the shift back into buildings has been slower than expected in parts of Australia — noting Melbourne had returned to lockdown — but says workers elsewhere should realise offices have been made safe.
A large proportion of staff have stayed away from the office but have resumed shopping and socialising, prompting calls for a pick-up in the rate of return to work outside of Melbourne.
“It feels like the busy-ness in private lives is inconsistent with what some organisations are doing in terms of bringing people back to offices,” Mr Taylor said.
Some technology firms will allow staff to work from home for the remainder of the year.
Taylor said his company had been on the front foot in adapting buildings, including measures like contactless entry, temperature checks and technologies to spread workers out, and extra cleaning.
The rate at which people are returning varies around the country, with Melbourne at the lowest levels due to its lockdown, but it was running at about 17-18 per cent of businesses back in Charter Hall towers.
In Perth, where it manages towers including Raine Square, about 82% of tenants are back, with their staff returning to varying degrees. Canberra is running at about 83 per cent of tenants back.
Adelaide is about 58%, Queensland about 44%, with the company’s Sydney-focused NSW holdings, including Chifley Tower, running at about 22%.
Mr Taylor said people were going to work as schools and small businesses opened and local cafes picked up.
“Larger building owners are all ready and well prepared, and so too are the CBD retailers who have done a terrific job preparing their business to safely service their customers,” he said.
Initial tenant surveys had identified a clash between returning to work and home schooling but this had been dealt with outside Melbourne by the reopening of schools, he said.
Charter Hall and some other landlords have worked with safety authorities to open end-of-trip facilities to allow for biking, while others have boosted parking.
Charter Hall CEO Adrian Taylor. Picture: David Thomson
Mr Taylor said the hype about waiting for lifts was completely overdone, saying there are no unusual waits. “The number of issues holding people back is shrinking,” he said.
“All these barriers have been remedied but there has been more reluctance to return to offices and that seems to defy what people are doing in the everyday element in their life.”
He also pointed to the importance of social interaction in the workplace and the ability of office-based teams to spark collaboration, which is difficult to achieve from home.
All up, Charter Hall manages about $20bn worth of office towers nationally, with its funds owning and managing buildings ranging from CBD towers to major suburban office parks, and there have been only minor falls in values so far.
Mr Taylor argues that predictions that people won’t swing back towards offices are overdone and said we were going through a “transition” period before more permanent shifts could be identified.
“I think a lot of current activity is a reactive response to an uncertain time and it’s far too early to tell exactly what the long-term impacts and change may be. But it will likely involve an ecosystem anchored by a well-designed office, combined with flexible work from home, from third spaces and from your client’s office,” Taylor says.
Meanwhile, he said there was an opportunity for local offices of multinationals to consider making early returns.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
