At the pandemic’s start, tech companies moved to remote work as a part of social distancing protocols. Now, companies including Snap Inc. and Twitter are shifting back to office work. This is predominantly due to the frustration of employees being disengaged. Many brokers suggest this will lead to an increase in office leases, a huge influence on the commercial real estate market. With the likelihood of tech companies looking for new office spaces to suit their updated policies, brokers can prepare to pitch their listings.
Before the pandemic, tech companies leased thousands of square feet of office space for their growing workforce. At the time, employees commuted daily to these offices compared to the flexible scheduling implemented today. According to CoStar, tech giants including Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and others had deals of more than 5 million square feet of office space in 2019.
Despite companies in the tech industry revising their work-from-home policies for employees to come back to the office, a full workweek in person will not be seen often. One of San Francisco’s biggest tech firms, Salesforce, has addressed that flexible work schedules will always remain a part of their culture, as it will across many companies in the industry. CEO Marc Benioff mentioned that although there are employees that benefit from coming into the office for work more frequently, “…we’re never going back to how it was”, noting that they will not see a schedule requiring employees to commute daily again.
Some companies shifting back to in-office work include the following:
- Snap Inc, headquartered in Santa Monica, is now requiring employees to be in the office 80% of the time beginning in February.
- Twitter, headquartered in San Francisco, now under the leadership of Musk is requiring employees to be in the office the full workweek.
- Apple, headquartered in Cupertino, moved to require employees to come into the office three days a week starting back in September of 2022.
- Credit Karma, headquartered in Oakland, now requires employees to come to the office at least a few days a week, with the days decided on by each team. The company added office perks including a game room and coffee bar to make in-office work more enjoyable for its employees.
- Salesforce, headquartered in San Francisco, is allowing employees to work up to four days a week remotely; however, some cases require employees to come to the office two days a week.
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*Source: CoStar
