You’d have to be asleep not to notice the generational change that’s happening in just about every US city. A significant swath of our downtown office space is sitting empty. New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Denver, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas and other big cities are experiencing record-high office vacancies as workers keep working from home and companies keep letting them.
Let’s face it: the downtown office market has changed significantly and permanently. Companies – such as Comcast in my home town of Philadelphia – can demand that their employees come back to the office, but they’re fighting against the tide. Work attitudes have changed. Technology is better. Remote working is accepted. Some face-time is necessary but we’re never going to go back to a 100% in-the-office policy, and companies that attempt this will lose talent to those that adapt to the shift.
