WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Office downsizing, simply moving to smaller offices, has been the go-to, cost-cutting corporate strategy since the pandemic strained corporate profits and transformed how and where workers worked. But not anymore, according to Jim Durfee, General Manager of Office Movers Express (OMX).
Last year OMX, a Beltsville, MD.– based office mover exclusively serving businesses and government, relocated over 150 regional firms. Yet only 25% were strictly downsize moves, compared to nearly 80% immediately following the pandemic. Mr. Durfee says three-quarters of their office moves in 2023 were actually part of a rightsizing strategy, and still are, today.
“Downsizing and rightsizing are often used interchangeably with rightsizing thought of as a more positive spin. But they really have separate meanings,” said Mr. Durfee. “Both are responses to market changes often triggered by decreased demand. While downsizing is a one-time, cost-cutting tactic, rightsizing is more about maintaining the right number of human resources. Its focus is on maximizing profits by creating organizational and operational efficiencies.”
With 12.7% of full-time employees now working from home and a projected 22% by 2025 (Forbes) HR departments, are reimagining their structural and staff needs to fit new realities and refined business objectives by:
* optimizing space utilization
* eliminating equipment redundancies
* identifying employees whose skills and roles no longer align with current business goals
* recruiting additional hires with skillsets that better support evolving corporate priorities.
Workforce accommodations have become major components. Barbara Kernus, East Coast Office Administrator for law firm Foster Garvey said they have a hybrid work schedule for staff with most attorneys only in the office two days a week.
Rightsizing often includes relocating to smaller office space. Yet, it is more likely a flight to higher quality, newer space as well. The lure of newer office buildings is evidenced by the fact that the overall downtown DC office vacancy rate at the end of 2023 was a staggering 21.2% (CBRE), and increased to 22.4% in the 2nd quarter of this year. Yet, according to commercial real estate firm Avison Young, vacancy rates for trophy office space were nearly half that at 11.5%. In fact downtown DC office buildings constructed prior to 2000 accounted for 75% of all vacancies.
For DC law firm Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner rightsizing meant “re-engineering and re-evaluating office space usage based on current needs,” according to firm administrator Pennie McKinney. And that meant moving to a better neighborhood, modernizing their work environment and upgrading amenities.
“We’ve seen that when a company does relocate to smaller space efficiency becomes a much higher priority,” said Mr. Durfee. “Large, bulky built-in furniture has been replaced with modern sit-stand desks, shared workstations collaborative spaces and the newest trend, hot-desking, with desks being un-assigned and used by different workers at different times on an as-needed basis.
While it may be early for long-range forecasts, the post-pandemic surge in rightsizing moves has spawned a leaner, more dynamic business response to economic downturns, putting the focus on objectives, needs, and the right people in the right places.
Office Movers Express (OMX) is the only mover that only serves business in DC, Maryland and northern Virginia since 1981. The firm also provides complete office decommissioning services as well as offering short and long-term storage in its climate-controlled and video-monitored 70,000 square foot warehouse.
