CoreNet Panel: The Future is Now for Corporate Space Reduction
The sometimes tricky relations between the C-suite and corporate real estate professionals was the focus of the February luncheon meeting of the Chicago chapter of CoreNet. But the participants seemed to concur on one overarching trend: "The footprint of corporate America is going to shrink," noted panelist Mary Kerbs, corporate real estate manager for energy conglomerate BP America Inc., before a crowded meeting room in downtown Chicago.
In other words, companies are busy investigating ways to use their real estate assets more efficiently, and the medium- to long-term impact will probably reduce the amount of office and other space that major companies use. But it isn't a simple process. "Everything has to be thought through and documented--a company's business objectives, its real estate strategies to help in achieving those objectives and the real estate metrics necessary to measure what its doing," said panelist Melissa Copley, president of Copley Advisors.
Sometimes the factors driving space use can be surprising, according to the panelists. Copley cited generational differences as one under-appreciated force in corporate space use. "Baby boomers associate a large amount of work space with success, but that isn't necessarily going to be the case for the next generations of workers, who are much more mobile in their thinking," she said.
The use of space is a very large untapped source of value for corporations, added Kerbs. "We walk around some of our facilities," she said, "and the work floor is always half empty. We have pilot programs to study the best ways to make employees more mobile. People talk about the mobile work force as if it's going to happen off in the future, but actually it's happening now."
Panelist Denis DeCamp, director of global real estate for technology company Rockwell Automation, warned of extrapolating lessons learned about space use in North America too much to other operations around the world. "It's what you don't take time to find out that will cause you problems," he said.
He pointed out that his firm has used about 345 square feet per office worker in the United States, and had a goal to reduce that to 225 square feet. "We relayed that goal to some of our offices in Europe and East Asia before we realized, for example, that our workers in Poland average 110 square feet and in Singapore only 90 square feet--entirely normal for those places," he said. "'What would be do with more space?' they asked. We were embarrassed for about a day by that."
