A new survey of CEOs conducted by KPMG suggests large employers are still not on board with hybrid or remote work. In fact, 64% think employees will be back in the office in three years time (up from just 34% in 2022). 

REALLY? This certainly isn't what I am seeing and hearing. How about you?

Nearly nine in ten say they will use favorable assignments, raises, and promotions as rewards for those why comply. 

REALLY? Is that even legal? Leaders may think those incentives are carrots but I would bet the employees who want a hybrid or remote arrangement will see them as sticks.

What do you think?

This is really interesting article about where AI and large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are headed in the near future. It's written by  a professor from Wharton who is studying how AI will change how we learn and how we work.

LLMs are evolving very quickly. He predicts the next iteration will be able to out-innovate many humans and enhance our performance of complex tasks. Google, Microsoft/Open AI, and a few others are adding the ability of their models to hear, speak, and see and create images. These models can now match the performance of experts in diagnosing disease, reading radiology reports, detecting design and production defects, evaluating auto insurance claims, critiquing VC pitches, prioritizing email, and more. 

The author stresses that these models are not perfect, but they are already performing far better than they were just ten months ago.

According to data from Gallup, CHROs believe 76% of white collar workers would prefer to work a schedule that allows them to blend their work and life. But data from employees about their actual preferences shows only 55% want to blend; a third less than what leadership assumed.

Maybe we should ask them rather than assuming?

Here is a schedule of what WE has planned for IFMA's World Workplace in Denver (Sept 25-29)! 

Tuesday's Half-Day Event at Gensler's Denver Office (9/26, 10-2):
WE Converge—an intimate dialog on shaping the future of urban workspaces. This half-day session is free, but seats are limited. Reserve your spot here.

Wednesday's lineup (9/27):
• What's new with WE, a quick overview of all WE has to offer from the WE leadership team
• The Emerging Role of the Chief Workplace Officer with Leni Rivera
• Structured Choice: Creating a Structure for Flexibility with John H. Vivadelli
• ESG By The Numbers with Suki Reilly, MCR.w, SLCR
• WE: What's Next and Close with Kate North and Michelle Weiss
• Fun and Networking at the combined WE/IT/EMEA Social—Reservations required! Advance sign-up required; limited seats. Sign up in advance: https://lnkd.in/gJthFiyD

Thursday's lineup (9/28):
• The Future of Work: Navigating Emerging Technologies and Leveraging Data to Attract Talent with Henry Massey & Kate Lister. Spoiler: There will be an exciting first-ever reveal of the WE Metaverse created just for WE by Elora Partners
• Optimizing the Triple Bottom Line—What promises to be a lively debate about which way the 'where we work' pendulum will swing? Moderated by WE Moshpit co-founder, David Gray, MCR.w

Friday's lineup (9/29)
• The Circular Workplace, a cross-community initiative and case study in practice with Gary Miciunas and Lisa Whited
• Panel Discussion on the Latest Findings from IFMA's Expert Assessment with Jeffrey Saunders, Dr. Marie Puybaraud, Luis R. Viña, Kay Sargent, Peter Ankerstjerne, and WE founder Kate North

Download all the details here.  

The gender pay and workforce participation gap is at its lowest ever. The research by Brookings identified a surprise bounce back from the start of the pandemic, which initially widened both gaps. While women's participation in the labor force increased across all age brackets, the largest shift was among women with children under the age of five. Though this group's representation in the labor force is still nearly ten percentage points lower than it is for women with older or no children (70.4% vs. 80%), the increase marks the reversal of a decades-long decline.

The study suggests the increase in participation could be due to the increase in flexible work practices, Covid-related fiscal and health policies that made it easier for mothers of young children to have a job, and possibly a reversal of maternity patterns. 

The opportunities for employee flexibility go way beyond the where and when of work. The author's specialty in neurodiversity has led her to discover a mindset of "comprehensive flexibility" would benefit not just those with a disability or neurodivergence; it would minimize stress and maximize productivity for everyone regardless of gender, race, caregiving, and socio-economic status.

By "comprehensive flexibility," the author means a broad palette of choice in when, where, how much, how regularly, and how consistently a person works. She offers examples of organizations like Lemon Tree Hotels, Ultranauts, and Siemens that offer flex options such as part-time or seasonal work as well as sabbaticals, job-sharing, variable work days, and job-crafting.

We don't hear much about job-crafting— breaking jobs into smaller chunks and reassembling them in a way that better fits the individual—but we will. Imagine if you could do just the parts of the job you enjoy! And you could do them when, where, and how you wanted. 

"It’s about making work “fit” people, not the other way around," says Praslova." When organizations center the design of work on humans, values, and long-term success in this way, they become productive, resilient, inclusive, and equitable."

Remote work advocates have long suggested that remote work would help create employment opportunities for those with physical or mental disabilities. It turns out WE/they were right. More than 1.5 million workers in this category have joined the workforce since prior to the pandemic. While there is still a long way to go, the employment-to-population ratio among those formally designated as disabled stands at a record high of over 22% and it's growing at a rapid pace since mid-2020. 

Allison Chase, president and CEO of The Able Trust, a Florida-based nonprofit focused on the disabled community says "basic transportation is one of the biggest barriers many people with disabilities have faced when looking for work. The post-pandemic remote-work boom has helped to eliminate that obstacle."

Experts estimate that one-quarter of the U.S. population lives with a disability, but 70% are not counted. As a result of stigmas, fear, and other barriers, only 4% of workers self-identify as disabled. Those whose disabilities are cognitive in nature, are particularly "invisible." And a 2023 report from PWC‚ a good read on its own, indicates that only 13% of companies are actively addressing neurodiversity. 

Unfortunately, even the ADA does not automatically protect even those with a formal disability designation from being required to be in the office. This needs to change if we want to expand opportunities for not just this group, but other marginalized populations such as those who live with undisclosed disabilities, military spouses, caregivers, and others. 

This 88-page report from the McKinsey Institute is a must read for our industry. It looks at how the pandemic has affected, and will likely continue to affect, where people work, live, and shop in the world's largest cities. Here are a some highlights from just the first ten pages: 

- Their moderate scenario estimates the decline in demand for urban office space to be, on average, 13% lower in 2030 than in 2019. The severe scenario puts the decline at 38%.

- The estimated decline in value associated with those scenarios is between 26% ($800B) and 42%.

- The impact will be vastly different from one city to the next. San Francisco, New York, and Munich will be the hardest hit.

- Office occupancy dropped by 90% at the peak of the lockdown. Currently, it is still down 30% from the pre-pandemic level. 

- On average, office workers were in the office 3.5 days a week. That frequency was slightly less among the professional services and information sectors (3 days and 3.2 days, respectively).

- Up to 7% of people made a permanent move from the city during the pandemic. The greatest outbound migration occurred in Dallas, New York, and San Francisco.

- Foot traffic near urban stores is 36% lower than it was before the pandemic. Owing to increased online shopping, suburban stores saw a 16% decline.

- Transaction volume (the total dollar value of all sales) fell by 57% in the top US cities, the average sale price per square foot fell by 20%, and asking rents fell by nearly 22% (all in real terms) from 2019 to 2022.

A new GAO report shows the large majority of the US federal government's nearly 700 million square feet of owned and leased space is less than 25% occupied. This is based on occupancy data (as measured by space usage vs. capacity) from 24 agencies that account for nearly 98% of the government's real property. The GAO testimony indicated:

- All of the agencies had completed their return to office transition by the end of 2022 and occupancy has since stabilized.

- The annual cost of leasing and operating those buildings totals approximately $7B a year.

- More than half of 180 million square feet of leased space will be up for renewal in the next three to four years  

- Seventeen of the 24 agencies reported occupancy of less than 25%. Among the other seven agencies, none reported occupancy higher than 49%. 

The report identified three primary causes for the low utilization: 

- Agencies have long retained more space than they needed

- Much of the space is not configured to support a modern workforce

- In-office work has not returned to pre-pandemic levels due to continued telework.

"To cope (with aging populations), experts say, rich countries will need to rethink pensions, immigration policies, and what life in old age looks like."

In 2013, a quarter of the population of Japan was over 65 years of age. In all of recorded history, no population has ever been as old as Japan's is now and others are expected to get there over the next ten to thirty years. By 2032, most of Western Europe will hit the twenty-five percent mark, and by 2044, South Korea, Britain, and Eastern Europe will do the same.

Meanwhile, the working populations of developing countries are growing.

In 1990, eight of the ten largest economies in the world also had the highest percentage of working age citizens. According to World Bank data, by 2023, only two were in the top ten (South Korea and China) and by 2050, India will be the only country on the list. If these predictions prove correct and the aging countries don't prepare for a shrinking percentage of their working age populations, they may face a gradual decline in well-being and economic power. 

It's a 158-page treasure trove of nuanced insights about the impact of return-to-office mandates on employee attitudes and intentions, company plans regarding real estate, space design, incentivizing RTO strategies, uptake of the four-day workweek, employee location preferences for different types of work, and much more! Individual reports are provided for a number of countries and regions.

Recognizing that a hybrid work environment would create new problems around noise, Meta has been prototyping new solutions that would allow someone to say, take a zoom call at their desk without disturbing your colleagues. They considered adding more 'phone booths' but a building code requiring separate sprinklers for each one sent them back to the drawing board.

The current design iteration, is a felt-like semi-flexible screen that can be wrapped around an existing desk for both visual and sound privacy. Testing showed these units could reduce noise by 20db. Their engineers took to the new idea and quickly staked their claim on spaces they could call their own by personalizing them with items they brought from home. 

While I feel like I'm having groundhog's day return to the cubicle experience, Meta sees it as a flexible way to solve two of the biggest complaints around open offices, noise and privacy. They have ordered 7,000 units and plan to make these available in about 10% of spaces.

You can't blame the pandemic for instigating the outbound migration of talent from big cities, but it did accelerate the trend. Data through 2021 shows:

• The NY metro area's net loss of college graduates totaled over 100k in 2021 
• SF lost 25k
• D.C. lost 15k 

These cities are not alone in the net brain drain. Other high cost areas including Los Angeles, Chicago, San Jose, and Seattle, are in the same boat. Even Boston is losing it's pull. The large majority have opted for somewhat smaller metro areas such as Phoenix, Austin, and Raleigh N.C. In 2020 and 2021 some opted for mid-sized metros and even rural areas. 

The NYT article points to cost of living as the primary reason white-collar workers are following the outbound trend set by their blue-collar neighbors years ago.

The end result is that if employers expect to hire the best and the brightest, they are going to have to think beyond their downtown office towers.