Login
Are firms wasting their office space?
Huge tenancy fees coupled with greater flexible working arrangements could lead to many reducing their overall office count over the next 12 months. Here, Lawyers Weekly throws the question at firms.
Emma Musgrave
There are two sides of the coin when it comes to whether firms have plans to reduce the office footprint they currently occupy, or, maintain it in 2021.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
With some firms dominating three or more levels of prime real estate in CBD areas, the cost isn’t cheap. This, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic creating greater flexible working arrangements has some questioning whether the current office structure is a waste of money that could be spent elsewhere.
Others don’t think so. Instead, they’re doing the reverse and maximising the success they’ve seen over the past 12 months to grow their office numbers.
To decipher what law firms in the Australian market are doing on this front, Lawyers Weekly put the question to some: is the firm intending to keep the same amount of office space or reduce it in 2021 and beyond?
Below are their responses.
“As a result of the pandemic, we have an exciting opportunity to re-imagine the future of work and the role of our offices,” said Australian executive partner Andrew Pike.
“The right size of our office footprint will evolve out of that process.”
“As part of our HW Evolve project, we are considering what office space may be required for our business to continue to grow and successfully operate,” said managing partner Tony MacVean.
“The physical office will remain an important part of our culture and offering to clients and our people, particularly for learning, collaboration, connection and socialising. We are likely to look to redesign how we use space to support these goals.”
Maddocks
“In the 12 months before COVID-19 hit, we had expanded our office space in Canberra and Melbourne and were looking at expanding our office space in Sydney to deal with the continuing growth of the firm,” chief executive David Newman said.
“As we have kept our people employed during COVID-19 and are now actively recruiting, we don’t see any need at this moment to consider reducing our footprint.
“The issue we are looking at instead is whether we need to reconfigure our existing office space to better accommodate the nature of work to be undertaken in the office environment and to continue to provide a safe workplace during the rest of the pandemic and in light of what we expect to be a higher level of longer-term flexible arrangements.”
MinterEllison
“The ways people are working, and the space they will need and want in the office, have all changed,” said CEO at the time of the question being posed, Annette Kimmitt.
“It is very likely we’ll use less space going forward in our major locations but more important is the nature of the space and we’re actively working on how we ensure our offices create the right environment for our people and for collaboration with clients.”
