What does it mean “to be or not to be” at work? How does the elusive answer to that proverbial question posed by Hamlet: “whether ‘tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune or take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing them, end them?” relate to the fate of office today? In Shakespearean England in 1603, and for the last 420 years that choice was binary. Suddenly, in 2024, the notion of personal choice for workers in a technologically empowered economy has become less binary, liberating them to explore almost infinite possibilities. This newfound freedom of choice by the workforce is enlightened and galvanized by the pursuit of purpose. In “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Viktor Frankl’s seminal book chronicling his experience in a Nazi prisoner of war camp, he postulates that purpose and meaning are the main drivers of personal choice. This technological liberation of choice has profound implications once a person is empowered with the tools to make hundreds of choices each day on how and where to work in their search for purpose and meaning.
What does it mean “to be at the office”? A simple etymonline web search explains the word “office” is contracted from the Latin word, “opificum” meaning, “work doing”, from ops (genitive opis) “power, might, abundance, means” (related to opus “work”, from PIE root *op- “to work, produce in abundance”) + combining form of facere “to make, to do” (from PIE root *dhe- “to set, put”). For centuries, in a binary, analog world, business owners and managers interpreted office to be a place of work, of doing, of producing. But in an employee empowered world of omnipotent technology and universal access to information, the universal association of “work” with “office” no longer applies.
Owners of office buildings invested in them because they (and everyone up until the Covid pandemic changed everything) felt that the universal force connecting the function of work with the place called the office was unbreakable. Post pandemic, that maxim has clearly been proven wrong as employees now look at their place of “work” as any place where they are doing and producing. The “workplace” is no longer synonymous with the office but must be redefined to be the place where work gets done. That can be at home, at the coffee shop, in the park, on the ski lift or in a place called the office. In many cases, it can also be done 24/7 and can be seamlessly interchanged in an instant with other pursuits for meaning, or comfort or entertainment while doing work.
In the technology driven world, this trend is only going to grow. If the pandemic promulgated technology enabled people to work from home (or anywhere but the office), the advent of AI will only accelerate this trend. Does that mean the buildings we call offices are doomed? Absolutely not. But what it does imply is that there is a vast oversupply of office space and that which we call office space, is perhaps, misnamed or misinterpreted for this new age. Unfortunately, unlike a new software version of a product that simply deletes and overwrites the old version, that is not possible with real properties.
What we call office buildings are essentially antiquated workplace programs that need to be rebooted. About 30-35% are hopeless outdated versions like IOS V 1-6 on the iPhone. They simply need to be deleted and turned into something else. These office buildings are basically worthless and will trade at land value at best and possibly negative value due to the cost of demolition. That includes most office buildings built before 1983. Offices built post 2013 are likely very purposeful and sufficiently modern to compete for tenants. In addition, their ownerships and capital structures are more likely able to make the physical changes to remain attractive and relevant. The real challenge comes with those hundreds of millions of square feet of offices built in the 30 years between 1983 and 2013 (note: very little was built in the five years after the GFC from 2008-2013). Some of these properties, likely about 10-15% can be effectively repurposed as residential, hospitality, storage, or other uses. While meaningful, this conversion does not solve the oversupply problem.
It's time to redefine office space from being a place of work to being a place of abundance and meaning. It must be a place where you can produce not only work, but produce for your health and welfare, your family, your purpose. That means many things to many people. No two people are the same. People have different needs, wants, desires. Work is just one of them. For many, it is a means to an end. But what if work became just one element of producing and the environment now called office is redefined and reimagined to be a place that allows workers to produce more effectively and efficiently in all areas of life. It’s just one of the many places you do work, but also do life.
The Great Reset in office building values has already begun. Older office towers that cannot be repurposed are trading at 15%-20% of replacement cost. The equity in most of these buildings has been eviscerated. Their future is in the hands of those who own the debt on them and the prospective new owners, who have amassed enormous amounts of capital to establish a new thesis for these buildings. Defining a space by what someone is expected to do there is antiquated. The space should be defined by what can be done there and the new ownership would be well counseled to provide space where workers can produce in abundance across the spectrum of their lifestyle needs. It should be a place that fosters knowledge, wisdom, virtue, justice, victory, arts, trade, strategy and more across the entire spectrum of human pursuits and needs. The Ancient Roman goddess of these traits was Minerva. Perhaps the place “to be or not to be” of the future is not at the office, but in Minerva.
