The global COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact every sector and present unique opportunities for how we operate our businesses in this ever-evolving climate. To help our clients, tenants, and the broader market informed as they navigate through this period, we have developed a series of dedicated reports on retail and office.

The team surveyed a stratified sample of the tenants in Colliers Real Estate Management Services’ (REMS) managed portfolio of 62 million square feet across every major market in Canada, which consisted of 184 office tenants, 122 retail tenants and 85 industrial tenants, totaling 391 tenants.

The second report, Office Recovery: Space Needs and Productivity, examines how perceived space needs have shifted, and continue to shift, since the start of the pandemic and how waning productivity in the workplace continues to be a decision-driver for employers. While businesses do plan on taking a flexible approach to remote work even when a vaccine becomes available, they will want to closely evaluate the efficacy of long-term remote work before making any final decisions about adjusting their space needs.

Key Takeaways:

• Businesses believe that working from home has caused productivity to drop by 23.4%
• Approximately 54% of businesses expect 100% of their employees to return to their office once a vaccine becomes available
• Tenants are now 30% more likely to want the same or more space after the pandemic compared to our June survey results
• Tenant mix could be a critical factor in how office assets perform in the future