While return to office trends are highest in telecom and consulting sectors, the IT and new technology sectors are lagging.
According to a survey by Colliers and Awfis, the majority of employees in the telecom and consulting sectors have returned to work with a considerable drop in COVID-19 cases, but the IT sector is trailing. The joint analysis by co-working operator Awfis and property consultant Colliers India examines the state of return to work in several industries.
According to the report, the return-to-office movement gathered steam in February as the third wave of COVID-19 began to wane. As a result, by June 2022, between 75 and 100 percent of the employees at 34 percent of the enterprises were back at work (hybrid employment included).
About 41 percent of occupiers stated that only up to 25 percent of their employees have returned to office. According to the poll, IT and new technology industries had the lowest rate of return to work (0–25 percent), while the telecom and consulting sectors had the greatest rate of return to work (75–100 percent).
Ramesh Nair, CEO of Colliers India, said that as occupiers recover from the pandemic’s effects, the poll has demonstrated that a distributed workspace strategy is the best option for them in this new era of experimental workplaces. Flex spaces in particular are driving this expansion as teams from various industries are housed in flex centres around cities.
He added that in the top six cities, flexible workspace operators leased roughly 3.5 million square feet of office space from January to June of this year, accounting for almost three-fourths of the total 2021 flexible space leasing, he added.
A survey was conducted between May and June in order to learn more about occupiers’ distributed workplace tactics. The responders were from a variety of industries, including engineering, manufacturing, BFSI, and IT/ITeS. C-Suite leaders from diverse firms, including founders, CEOs, COOs, and CHROs, submitted a total of 150 responses. The respondents’ firms ranged in size from those with 1 to 500 people to those with over 10,000.
Distributed workspace
According to the report, roughly 74 percent of occupiers are likely to use distributed workspace, while 53 percent choose working from home plus an office as their preferred workplace portfolio strategy. To enable a distributed workplace, about 49 percent of occupiers are likely to use flex centres, followed by opening their own offices in metro and non-metro areas.
Flex Space
Flex space potentials are seen by the consultant in both metro and non-metro cities. In fact, Nair predicted that by the end of 2022, total flex spaces in non-metro cities will more than double to 5.5 million square feet. The survey’s results, according to Amit Ramani, founder and CEO of Awfis, are evidence of the success of the distributed work model and flex spaces in meeting India Inc.’s changing workspace needs.
He added that about 77 percent of the future occupants will include flex areas in their workplace strategies. We anticipate extraordinary demand in the future, driven mostly by huge corporations looking to de-densify their current traditional office buildings.
The gross rental of offices increased to 32.9 million square feet in 2021 from 30.1 million square feet the year before, according to Colliers India data. The total area in six cities in 2019 was 44.8 million square feet. These cities being Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Pune.
Office space leased increased from 10.3 million square feet in the same period last year to 27.5 million square feet in the first half of this year. Operators of flexible workspaces represented 13 percent of the leasing market.
