New normal

By: J. David Chapman/November 5, 2020

I don’t like the term “new normal.” If I am completely honest, I don’t like change, so the term new normal indicates permanent change to me. It seems like as a real estate professional, an academic researcher, and columnist I have been writing about the effect of current events on real estate. Maybe it is time to admit that the effects I have been researching, speaking, and writing about are more permanent than I wanted to acknowledge.

United Minds and KRC Research recently surveyed office occupiers. The results support my suspicion that it might be time to acknowledge some permanent changes are likely taking place in the office market. Sixty-one percent of U.S. workers are contemplating professional or lifestyle changes that will affect the workplace going forward. In addition, some form of remote work will be a permanent solution for nearly half of American employees. While this is certainly reason to be concerned for office owners, understand the response to this question was some form of remote work would be permanent – there could likely be redundant systems at home and office.

There were three particularly interesting findings in the study. First, 41% of U.S. workers say they plan to work from home full- or part-time in the future. Secondly, a higher proportion of workers with children (52%) say they plan to work from home full- or part-time in the future than those without children (33%). Lastly, 11% plan to change jobs. These results are interesting and probably a little troubling to some of you. We suspected that children at home and schooling situations would affect workers’ ability to return and willingness to return to the office, but research is now providing the empirical proof we wanted. We are starting to see those so committed to staying home that they are willing to change jobs and even careers to do so.

I have commented that I believed that research would show that the time employees were forced to work from home and away from the office was the least efficient and effective time in history. However, the survey reported that employees indicate high productivity levels while working from home. Seventy percent of those working from home say they work as productively or better at home, while 85% say they have the tools and resources they need. Given the choice, 74% say they’d like to continue working from home rather than go to their place of work every day.

J. David Chapman is an associate professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu).