Tech researchers IDG are switching to a hybrid office and work-from-home model as they prepare to occupy their new headquarters at 140 Kendrick St. in Needham. Photo by Andy Ryan | Dyer Brown/Courtesy
Vistaprint is switching to a “remote–first” workplace as it prepares to relocate this summer to a new headquarters at 170 Tracer Lane in Waltham, shrinking its office footprint by over two-thirds and removing cubicles in favor of collaboration spaces for those who only visit the office for meetings.
“We felt like team workers were productive, leaders were engaged and it was going well. The decision to move to permanent remote working after the pandemic seemed like a relatively straightforward one,” said Paul MacKinlay, Vistaprint’s vice president of communications and remote working.
Meanwhile, business networking site ZoomInfo is crossing Route 128 to occupy most of Vistaprint’s former space, with a planned expansion that will triple its office footprint to keep pace with a recent hiring spree. Although it’s offering employees a hybrid work option, those who work in the office less than three days a week won’t get an assigned desk.
“We do believe that an in-office culture gave us a strategic advantage pre-pandemic,” CEO Henry Schuck said. “We think our employees have a better opportunity to learn and collaborate and invent in our offices than fully remotely.”
Similar space decisions by thousands of companies will have lingering implications for the future of the region’s office market. The availability rate in Boston rose to 18.5 percent in the first quarter, according to CBRE, as 25 companies put a total of 214,000 square feet of sublease space on the market.
Surveys Show Support for Hybrid
Their decisions are partially driven by internal surveys gauging employee preferences, which have prompted some companies to rethink their space needs. Only 60 of Vistaprint’s 1,000 office-based employees worldwide said they wanted to work a normal pre-pandemic schedule, McKinlay said, and 71 percent said they planned to visit the office one day a week or less.
A survey conducted by staffing service Robert Half in early March found that 49 percent of respondents prefer a hybrid work model, and many indicated a desire for flexible work hours.
Corporate leaders are still grasping for the right balance of remote and in-office working and what it means for their real estate needs, said Ashley Dunn, director of workplace for Boston-based architects Dyer Brown. Those that don’t have imminent lease expirations are taking a wait-and-see approach to how offices will function following reopenings.
“We’ll have so much more data by the end of the year,” Dunn said. “All of our behavior is changing so rapidly as the pandemic goes on.”
Few companies appear to be making physical changes to existing offices. Not a single tenant in Boston Properties’ 11.4 million-square-foot New York portfolio has pulled a building permit to reconfigure spaces during the pandemic, executives said in an earnings call last week.
Even in companies that are rebooting their physical offices to enable more remote work, the share of employees that will use the opportunity long-term is still very uncertain.
‘Strictly Guessing’ at Popularity
Tech researchers IDG are taking the same approach as ZoomInfo as they prepare to occupy a new consolidated headquarters in Needham, with assigned desks only given to employees who spend a majority of the week in the office. The 125,000-square-foot office at 140 Kendrick St. replaces three Framingham buildings that had expiring leases. The new space will include more call rooms and quiet meeting spaces, Marketing Director Lynn Holmlund said, and could reopen at 25 percent capacity in June.
“We’ve been fortunate to have our employees be exceptionally productive during this work-from-home time, so we wanted to make sure the return to work maintains and enhances that,” Holmlund said.
Executives acknowledge the widespread uncertainty about what the post-pandemic workplace will look like, and whether the shift to remote work and Zoom sessions is permanent.
“If you ask me how many people are going to be in the office at any point in time, right now we are strictly guessing at this,” said Guz Malezis, CEO of Imprivata.
The healthtech company is downsizing from 93,000 square feet in Lexington to 75,000 at 20 CityPoint in Waltham, while advertising permanent remote work options for salespeople and engineers.
“It is new,” Malezis said. “Now we’re saying we can hire people anywhere in the country and there’s an expectation you can work from home almost all the time, but there will be two or three times a year where we’d like to see you in the office.”
Major financial service tenants in Boston are studying their options for new offices that are currently under construction. Fidelity Investments is adding 134,000 square feet of office space to its 737,660-square-foot Seaport World Trade Center on Commonwealth Pier complex.
Fidelity spokesman Michael Aalto said the company plans a partial work-from-home strategy as it’s beginning a “voluntary re-entry” process for its offices including Boston.
“While we have realized many benefits working from home, being in an office setting has many advantages and is foundational to Fidelity’s culture,” Aalto said in an email.
Redesigned for More Screen Time
Cambridge-based QuickBase opted to reduce its footprint by 30,000 square feet when it signed a 40,000-square-foot lease in March at Atlantic Wharf in Boston. The new offices have a larger allocation of collaboration areas taking the place of assigned seating, Dyer Brown’s Dunn said. Huddle rooms and private offices at IDG were designed to be the same size, so they can be converted from one to the other based upon future usage patterns.
Steve Adams
Imprivata responded to COVID-19 by adding more video monitors to conference rooms, reflecting the increasing role of Zoom calls in the business day and the need to have multiple screens for presentation materials and employee interaction.
“COVID has put us in an environment where a hybrid is a much more necessary configuration,” said Malezis, the CEO. “We know the senior management will spend more time in the office, and the more senior, the more likely you’ll be in the office three or four days.”
