The global corporate fashion for firing workers to cut costs is not only redefining the relationship between employer and employee, it is driving a revolution in property management.
Smaller companies need smaller offices, and many of the people they continue to employ will work from home or away from the main office, at least part of the time.
“I’m totally convinced we’re in a total revolution and if you don’t realize it, you’d better jump on the bandwagon quick,” Peter Wingrave, head of design and construction at IBM Property Management (UK), said at a recent property conference.
“Space is now the least of our priorities,” he said. “The caveat is that the space we do provide has to be better than it has ever been.”
Wingrave and other speakers said technological advances, the need for more productivity and evolving corporate cultures mean companies need less space.
British Telecommunications PLC, for example, has fired 100,000 workers over the last five years, said Alan White, the director of group property. That let it reduce its property requirements to 66 million square feet from 80 million, saving the company $450 million a year.
A smaller staff is only one consideration as technological advances mean companies no longer have to provide a single office or desk for each employee.
“Twenty-five million people in the United States will select telecommuting over going to the office by the year 2000,” said John Dues, a director with Arthur Anderson & Co, referring to the practice of people working from their homes by computers and phone lines.
Wingrave said the “new office” is designed to encourage teamwork rather than reinforce a heirarchy. At its best, it is similar to a market square where people come together to exchange items and work as teams.
At IBM in Europe, employees are not assigned desks but use common work stations that provide computers or places to plug in portable computers. Each office also has a “mini-business unit” that has communal fax machines, printers and photocopiers.
“No one owns the space,” Wingrave said. ” It’s a company asset that’s available to everyone.”
Dues said technology will affect more than just offices. He said, for example, that he chooses hotels during business trips based on their ability to provide three phone lines, letting him talk on a phone, connect a computer and receive electronic mail.
He added that 43 percent of consumers in Canada and the U.S. now shop by electronic mail from their homes, and Arthur Anderson estimates this will lead to closure of 120 major retail centers in the next four years.
Real estate agents at the property convention, Europe’s largest, said technology is also beginning to change the way properties are sold.
Real estate agencies now advertise rental properties on the Internet, though they say detailed information about investment properties is too sensitive to place on such an open system.
Several companies also use the Internet to display office rents, property valuations and upcoming auctions in Britain.
