Working from home: it's not just for the pandemic anymore. As Labor Day weekend passes into the rearview mirror, a large percentage of that labor is still being expended at home rather than in the office, despite efforts by government, media and business leaders to convince workers to return to their commutes and cubicles. The New York Times recently reported that some employees at The Washington Post are in open revolt, refusing to comply with publisher Fred Ryan's order to work at the newspaper's relatively new headquarters at least two to three days a week. Bethesda's Marriott International has an even-newer HQ at 7750 Wisconsin Avenue (in fact, it just opened), and their CEO told The Wall Street Journal that he expects the building to help lure employees back to in-person work.
Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano said that he can tell from the facial expressions of workers on Zoom calls that they are intrigued by the gleaming new spaces they can see behind their co-workers at the HQ. He compared them to children looking in a department store window in a Norman Rockwell painting, feeling left-out watching co-workers laughing as they return from a convivial HQ lunch in tiny Zoom windows. “You can tell they miss some of that unofficial interaction," Capuano told the Journal.
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| Seating in the new HQ's lobby level |
Many features of the building are a nostalgic view into Marriott's storied past, even as the company has grown to the greatest heights in its nearly 100-year history. The founder's Model T is on display, a sculpture dedicated to former CEO Arne Sorenson is being installed, and the employee cafeteria is called The Hot Shoppe, after the company's beloved former restaurant chain. “In some ways, walking around this building is like a family reunion,” Capuano said.
The company will host an official grand opening celebration on September 19. Capuano is hopeful a tour of the building will energize employees about spending more time there. “Once you get here, the prevailing view I hear is, ‘I want to be here a lot,’ because it’s a great work environment,” he recalled to the Journal.
And if that's not enough to make the sale for the WFH fans? Capuano doesn't plan to make an across-the-board demand that everyone return at this juncture, the Journal reports. He said decisions would be on more of a case-by-case basis. An example he gave of someone who could not indefinitely work from home would be an employee who must work closely with executives daily.
Marriott is paying Montgomery County for the use of the Woodmont Corner parking garage across the street from its new HQ during business hours. It made that deal before anyone ever heard of "COVID-19" or Zoom meetings. If the daytime population of the building doesn't reach full capacity, Marriott executives will at least be relieved that they included the option to lease back spaces to the County as needed into that contract.
5 comments:
It’s quite interesting. In Chicago, Kraft, McDonalds and United Airlines all moved their Corp HQ from the Suburbs in to Downtown Chicago in an effort to lure younger workers (some straight out of college) that they can pay just over half what they paid the older workers out in the suburbs. So Marriott is doing the same thing. This time Marriott is banking on the fact that they can Lure younger workers thru being 3 to 4 blocks from the Bethesda METRO Station, which appeals to young people who either don’t have cares or don’t want to use their cars to drive to work. We’ll see if it works !
As a former office dweller working fulltime from home since 3/19, I say "Good luck with that."
Never going back
Workers realized that in office is actually less productive
Working from home gives workers power to have lives outside the office
As a lawyer, I missed everything of my first child’s early years
I experienced every moment of my 2nd child’s life while being as productive working from home. Gone were the endless cocktail parties, long lunches. Meetings outside the office and travel to and from Dc from md suburbs
Never going back
Workers Unite
"(A)n employee who must work closely with executives daily." I'm calling BS. If you need me at your beck and call, then buy me a phone line that I can put on speakerphone mute and go on with my day. Holler when you need me! I'll hear you.
It's amazing how many middle and late career workers think going to the office is dead. They may find themselves on the outside of work soon when some go getter young workers go to the office and compete for their jobs. I know many young workers will opt for laziness but anyone in their 20's unwilling to go to an office is also unlikely to end up in the C suite later in life. The folks who go to the office and succeed will soon be management an will judge those at home.
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