From now on, tech firms will have to justify their office space.
That's the message from the leaders of a handful of Twin Cities tech firms who've discovered that their employees can work just as well remotely during the Covid-19 pandemicas they can in an office.
While none of the CEOs interviewed for this story said they were giving up their office space completely, they all said they'd move towards a "hybrid model" of work where employees work part of the time in the office and part of the time elsewhere.
The CEOs of Sezzle Inc., Calabrio Inc., HelpSystems and Irish Titan all say their firms will embrace some version of the hybrid model. That means open-plan offices without assigned seats are here to stay, and the office space of growing firms might stay the same size or even shrink.
Sezzle, which offers a pay-as-you-go service for online stores, is based out of the McKesson building in Minneapolis' North Loop. Right before the pandemic began, it extended its lease in the building from one floor to two on a year-by-year basis. It has recently returned to just having one floor. That floor will have fewer assigned spaces and more furniture like couches, even though Sezzzle continued to grow throughout the pandemic, CEO Charlie Youakim said.
"We just don't know how many people are going to come back," he said.
In November, Sezzle adopted what it calls a "flexible work policy," meaning leaders of each team can decide how often they work in the office. Accommodating remote workers will be necessary going forward; Sezzle, which has over 250 full-time employees, continued to hire throughout the pandemic but without a preference for location. It now has employees in over 20 states, Youakim said.
Flexibility is also important to IT and software firm HelpSystems, CEO Kate Bolseth said. While some employees will probably return to a permanent space in the firm's Eden Prairie offices, more will most likely work in shared spaces, sometimes called hoteling options.
"Location and schedule flexibility was a major theme in our most recent employee survey," Bolseth said in an email. The majority of respondents favored a hybrid approach, she said, adding that HelpSystems workers have been just as productive working from home as they were in the office.
That's also true for Calabrio, a call-center software firm based in Minneapolis. In a similar employee survey, many of its employees supported the hybrid approach to working as well, said CEO Tom Goodmanson, who doesn't disagree with the survey results.
“If they say they’re more productive and that proves out, I could mostly care less," he said.
The firm will start seriously considering its return-to-office policies in July. Its four floors in the North Loop have sat mostly empty since Covid-19 cases started to rise in the fall. The office will be important because it's centering for new hires, who can feel disconnected if they've never been in there, Goodmanson said.
And there are a lot of new hires. With just over 700 employees now across the globe, Calabrio expects to hire 200 people this year and 200 people next year, he said.
IT consultancy and website designer Irish Titan is calling its employees' return a "return to hybrid." CEO Darin Lynch pointed out that most tech firms don't reallyneed an office to do their work, and some don't have one at all. Tech firms that keep their offices will have to make sure they have a good reason for them. If a company doesn't value creating a shared culture, it can probably save some money on real estate, he said.
But Irish Titan relies heavily on its culture to keep employees happy and engaged, which means it will try and return employees at least some of the time as soon as it can.
"Culture is what happens between the meetings," Lynch said.
Irish Titan will open new offices as it expands in the United States. It has a few projects in the works, but the only one Lynch talked about was in Austin, Texas. While it could rent space in a WeWork or similar coworking space, Irish Titan is instead looking to get its own floor in an office building so it can add its own touches.
"We want the things that make our office our office," Lynch said.
