Employers may reduce real estate footprints as on-site work wanes

Dive Brief:

Workplaces may not return to normal for some time, if they ever do, according to the May 21 results of a recent Deloitte survey of CFOs.
Seventy-five percent of the 156 respondents said they expect more of their workforce to work remotely in the future and nearly half said they expect their business to reduce its real estate footprint.
To resume near-normal levels of on-site work, 52% said effective, on-site COVID-19 testing would be needed; 35% said it would depend on the availability of treatments and vaccines.

Dive Insight:

As employers face a pandemic that necessitates social distancing and an accompanying potential recession leading to reduced customer demand, it follows that the need for corporate real estate could fall.

Some employers are implementing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations for spread-out workspaces and physical barriers. Others, however, have decided that many employees will continue to work remotely — either instead of other measures or in concert with them.

And as the Deloitte results revealed, some are waiting for on-site testing. Both LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics have launched such programs, but widespread adoption may still be out of reach. Quest, for example, said it will prioritize access for organizations that employ healthcare workers, first responders and others in critical pandemic response roles.

Employers hoping to adopt such measures also have myriad questions to answer first, experts previously told HR Dive. Among other things, HR may need to lead discussions about the compensability of testing time and how medical records will be maintained.