The Office Called. It Wants Its Workers Back

The Office Called. It Wants Its Workers Back

Submitted by Kim Marks, ProgressiveAE

CREW Charlotte featured “The Office Called. It Wants Its Workers Back” for the May virtual lunch topic. The panel moderated by Scarlet Powell, Senior Account Manager at AVI-SPL, consisted of Molly Carroll, Partner, Marketing and Communications at Trinity Partners, Steve Hallmark, Director of Operations for North Carolina with Cousins Properties, and Virginia Luther, Managing Director Charlotte Commercial at The Spectrum Companies. Our esteemed panel of local industry experts discussed heading back into our workspaces from multiple perspectives, including operations, communications, and technology.

Steve spoke from a building owner perspective relaying the initiatives Cousins has taken on at One South (formerly Bank of America Plaza) including the FitWell designation. Covid was not the main driver for these initiatives, were they already a part of Cousins strategic approach for building operations and sustainability.

Technology is rising to the top of perhaps the most important change resulting out of this pandemic. From Building Owners and Tenants requesting building data and information to Employees wanting the flexibility to work from any location that best suits their needs for that task. Technology needs to be seamless, easy to use and fast.

A common question was whether building owners or organizations had expressed any plans or desire to require their occupants/employees to provide proof of vaccination in order to return to the office? Most panelists agreed that they have not experienced this yet but do know several companies incentivizing employees if they do show proof of vaccination.

There has been a lot of talk about what the office will look like or feel like once we return to the office. Most companies believe that they will adopt a hybrid solution which allows Employee’s flexibility in where they work while meeting the needs of the organization. “If this has taught us anything, it’s that creating a culture that people want to collaborate and engage in is what Trinity does well,” said Molly Carroll. “We’re trying to create an environment where people feel safe enough to engage in that way, so we can get back to the work we’re supposed to be doing.”