Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook have spent billions on sparkling new offices. Now they are almost empty

Apple has reportedly spent $ 5 billion on the construction of its Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, “spaceship.” Uber will spend at least $ 1 billion over the next decade on the two San Francisco buildings that now serve as its headquarters. And Microsoft is rebuilding its 500-acre campus in Washington, which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. There’s one thing these sites all have in common: they’ve been pretty much empty for most of this year.

But thanks to the coronavirus vaccine, workers should be able to flow back next year.

What companies don’t know yet is what that will look like. Property managers and the companies themselves are considering how the new normal will take shape.

For many technical workers, that likely means a mixed work environment – being able to come part of the week and work from home the other part. Allocated desk space can also disappear as companies embrace a “hot desk” approach, where you can work anywhere you find one place. Hardware companies are also likely to expand their labs, where working machines and the collaborative atmosphere will be the reason some people have to come in.

Businesses will likely experiment for a while as they figure out what works. But once the pandemic is over, things are unlikely to return to how they used to be.

“It will be difficult to put the cat back in jail after this,” said Kasey Garcia, a senior manager at real estate company CBRE, who helps companies define their work environment. “I think it would be such a missed opportunity if we did that.”

For many tech companies, whatever this new standard becomes will likely affect how the industry operates for some time. While tech companies were looking for talent, they popularized work culture ideas such as encouraging more artistic workspaces, free cafeterias, and activities like yoga classes. Those ideas – which help employees spend as much time in the office as possible – have spread across the tech industry.

That probably hasn’t all gone up in smoke, not after companies have spent or pledged billions of dollars on these shiny new offices that will use fewer people. Instead, the way employees use them is about to change.

Whatever the tech industry does can affect the work for the rest of us. The productivity and collaboration software that tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Slack and Zoom come up with often become the favored picks of other industries when they embrace remote working.

With many employees reluctant to go back to the pre-coronavirus status quo, new thinking is required. Experts and company representatives agree that none of these changes will solidify for years. But the process begins now.

“There are many tasks that can be done remotely, and there is a reason for people to come to the office, and hopefully that will create more work-life balance,” said Elizabeth Hart, a lease broker and vice chairman at a real estate agency. Newmark. This is not only due to the coronavirus, she added. Over the years, employees have raised concerns about mental and physical health, sustainability and work-life balance with their families.

But now that this experiment of remote working has been forced upon us by the pandemic, people are rethinking how the office is when they are allowed to work from home. “It will be a new way of working that is actually better for all of us.”

Same for the following year

People often think of tech companies in terms of their employee-centric culture, but with that come rigorous work schedules. Before the pandemic, companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google were known for largely expecting employees to regularly show up at the office every day.

The companies went so far as to finance buses with onboard Wi-Fi connections to help employees manage the multi-hour commute across the San Francisco Bay Area without losing precious work hours.

There is no indication that those buses will leave once the pandemic is over. Most tech companies say they are focused on the coming months, rather than thinking about how their offices will operate in a year.

“The reality is, no one really knows,” Michael Huaco, Uber’s head of the workplace, said in an interview last month.

Uber has gone through the process of opening, closing and reopening offices around the world as the waves of infection wiped out, he said. And in November, the company opened its new San Francisco headquarters for about 10% of its workforce on a voluntary basis. “We maintain a social distance that is significantly more than six feet,” he noted, saying people should undergo home tests and answer health questions before being allowed in. “Everyone understands this is serious business.”

Ultimately, he said, Uber could take a hybrid approach among its 22,000 employees. That means offices would be designed as collaborative spaces, with people entering the office for meetings rather than just for work. That could also lead to fewer individual agencies. “Even before COVID, that trend was changing,” he said.

Google is considering a similar approach, according to an early December email to employees of CEO Sundar Pichai. While the company hasn’t provided details, it’s a notable shift from the lavish business benefits that the technology giant pioneered to encourage employees to stay in the office.

Dell has taken a similar approach. Internal surveys showed that more than 60% of the workforce wants to keep their distance. Still, the company ensures that its offices have a reason to be, either as places for teams to gather or for employees to work in a lab.

“It goes back to the culture you want to create,” said Jennifer Davis, head of corporate affairs at the computer giant, which employs approximately 134,000 people. “We still see value in campuses where people can come together and collaborate and innovate.”

Permanent relocation

In the meantime, some workers have begun to move away from city centers, so remote working will continue for years to come.

On Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told his more than 48,000 employees that his company will set up work hubs across the country so they can get together, even if they live in suburbs around major cities like Atlanta, Dallas and Denver.

“Approaching this thoughtfully and methodically, rather than just opening the doors to everyone … will help us strengthen really important parts of our operational culture,” Zuckerberg said in an internal town hall that aired live on Facebook in May. .

In the next five to 10 years, about half of Facebook employees could work remotely, Zuckerberg said, but their Silicon Valley salaries don’t track them.

These companies don’t just throw ideas at the wall. Many of them rely on internal “pulse” surveys that they conduct several times a year, which give them a sense of how employees feel about how the company operates. And at least they’ve provided clues about what employees want.

Some people say they want to work from home, according to people who have seen these studies. Some want a hybrid model, which they commute to a few times a week. Others feel the need to get back to their teams and corporate culture.

“It’s a form of FOMO – fear of missing out on an office,” said Lexi Russell, director of research and analysis at real estate firm CBRE. It’s a feeling people in different industries have, she said. But for many techies, work culture is part of the reason they chose a specific company: everything from free food to the ping pong tables. “It’s a really big draw.”