The Long-Term Threat to Office Demand is Getting Real

About a month after the US lockdowns for the pandemic began, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman told Bloomberg Television that it had become clear to him that the firm could operate with “much less real estate.” The productivity of Morgan Stanley’s hastily-assembled remote workforce turned out to be strong enough that he could see a future where “part of every week, certainly part of every month, a lot of our employees will be at home.”

As the pandemic wore on, more and more companies were coming to the same conclusion, either mulling out loud the benefits of a permanent remote workforce or actively making plans to move in this direction. In a Gartner survey in April, 74% of CFOs said they intend to move at least 5% of their previously on-site workforce to permanently remote positions post-COVID 19. Nearly a quarter of respondents said they will move at least 20% of their on-site employees to permanent remote positions.