Will Fewer Occupied Office Buildings Affect Roofing Work?

By Karen L. Edwards, RCS Editor.

After nearly two months of a remote workforce, many big companies are saying they no longer need a lot of office space.

A large percentage of the workforce has been working from home for the last six to eight weeks. Maybe even your teams are working remotely. There are a lot of advantages to having your team work remotely, including increased productivity and cost savings.

Global Workplace Analytics (GWA) reports in their Work-from-home Forecast for after COVID-19 that “occupancy studies have shown just how inefficient office space was being used. Employees around the globe are not at their desk 50% to 60% of the time.” GWA President Kate Lis said, “Our best estimate is that 25-30% of the workforce will be working-from-home multiple days a week by the end of 2021.”

Companies announce or suggest plans to vacate buildings

At the end of last month, Nationwide announced a plan to permanently transition to a primarily working from home model. They will keep four main campus locations open in Ohio, Iowa, Arizona and Texas and plan to exit most of their buildings in the five cities outside the main locations by November 2020.

Nationwide CEO Kirt Walker said that the company had been investing heavily in technology over the last few years and “the investments paid off when we needed to transition quickly to a 98 percent work-from-home model. Our associates and our technology team have proven to us that we can serve our members and partners with extraordinary care with a large portion of our team working from home.”

CNBC reported that the CEO of Mondelez International, the parent company of many favorite snack brands including Nabisco and Cadbury, said that the coronavirus crisis has shown them “we can work in different ways,” and the company won’t need all of its global offices.

Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman shared with CNBC that the company projects it will need “much less real estate” than in the future. He reported that 90 percent of their team members have been working successfully from home.

What does this mean for roofing?

That’s a good question. If companies are reducing the number of buildings they are using for offices, we are going to see a lot of unoccupied buildings. Yet, those buildings still have roofs that will need to be maintained and replaced to protect the owners’ investments. However, commercial buildings are losing value according to the Green Street Commercial Property Price Index which reported a decline of 9.4 percent in April.

While the commercial retail/office space/mixed use building industry will surely take a hit from companies giving up their leases, roofing contractors should still be needed to service, maintain, and replace the roofs of those buildings. Crowded office buildings are likely going to be a thing of the past but building owners may be looking to convert spaces for other uses such as housing, apartments or other uses that will remain in demand.  All those options still require a roof!

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