Good afternoon —
It's getting louder and louder in the HousingWire headquarters office in Dallas, Texas, these days as vaccinated employees come back. We have a good number of geographically remote employees. So even when we get back to our normal 3-2-2 office schedule this fall, we won't have everyone here. But a noisy newsroom is music to my ears — except of course when we're doing a podcast!
What's the remote vs. in-office status of your company?
At the Gathering of Eagles conference in Colorado two weeks ago, Susan Yannaccone, chief executive of Realogy's huge franchise network, said she has a collaboration space, but not an actual office at her company's headquarters. And Dan Duffy, CEO of United Real Estate, said of United's Dallas office: "There are supposed to be 740 agents there, but you could shoot a cannonball through the office right now and not hit any one of them."
Some of the biggest companies in the U.S. have decided their employees can continue to work remotely, which means every other company is competing with that standard as they try to hire in a hot job market. Whether because employers see no reason to pay for office space when people have proved so productive at home, or whether there has been a full-scale revolt of former office workers, a flexible stance seems to be the trend.
The in-office versus remote discussion is even more interesting for title and settlement companies, since they made foundational changes to serve customers during the pandemic. Some of those changes look likely to stick, including remote online notarization, or RON (where allowed).
I'd love to hear how your company is handling a return to the office (or not), and whether you've seen big attitude changes among current staff or those your company wants to hire. Shoot me a note at swheeler@housingwire.com.
Until next week —
Sarah Wheeler
HousingWire Editor in Chief
EmoticonEmoticon