As companies and their employees became accustomed in working from home during the pandemic, what is to become of the workplace going forward? Work from home has been perceived as functional and productive, but companies have been missing a key driver to profitability: human interaction.  

With re-opening well underway and more people headed back to the office each day, Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) companies are taking the opportunity to reimagine the workplace by focusing on their own individual “why?,” evaluating priorities, and creating flexible strategies that meet the immediate and long-term needs of their employees and the company itself.

Why Have an Office?

The need for innovation, creativity, and spontaneous moments thrive on the workplace-as-the-conduit model. Along with employees missing their colleagues and the collaboration, the company culture lives in a physical space. Knowing that all these factors drive profitability, global companies expand their offices in Dallas and local companies are still committing to long-term leases and redesigning the workplace.

The key question is how will your workforce use space going forward and why?

Prioritizing Priorities

Per JLL’s Global Head of Research and Consulting Leads, the workplace is being reimagined in real-time. The top priorities driving companies consistently across the globe and in DFW today, include the following:

• Employee Health and Safety: Companies prioritized this first for the office space itself to make sure everyone would be safe upon returning.
• Recovering Revenue: Focused on recovering revenue and liquidity for business continuity. Companies in DFW stayed resilient with less than 4% of tenants defaulting on leases per JLL Dallas Research.
• Rebuild Operations: Thinking about how operationally the workforce will work now and going forward, by function. One DFW corporation will continue to have call center operations work from home for the foreseeable future but all other operations are returning to the office with some flexibility.
• Rethink Organization: Determining how the organization will support a distributed workforce and flexibility for employees. Adjusting the current models to support choices the employees will have.
• Accelerate Digital Adoption: Invest in innovation and technology to digitally transform the organization forward.

Flexible Strategies

Being flexible in re-imaging the changing workplace while offices open back up, is critical moving forward.

Employee surveys on conditions and morale, getting people back in the office, and monitoring how people are using the space can, and will, give companies a sense of if and how to redesign space for the future. Allowing more choices like partially working from home, or full-time in the office, depends on a person’s circumstances, preference, or personal productivity, and can provide a balance for connectivity and help with retainment.

At JLL, we are committed to creating a workplace focused on health and well-being where all employees can thrive. Since we began re-entry in July, 333 of our offices around the world have welcomed back workers. Our DFW offices were among the first.

While re-entry may be non-linear at times, we're confident in the eventual return to a productive workplace in the buildings and spaces for our employees, and the clients we serve.