5 reasons to combine your HR and real estate strategy

#1 Strategic synergy

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Put an end to working in silos. Close collaboration between the HR department and the real estate manager is essential to create a strategic synergy that meets your company's organizational objectives.

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By combining human resources management with workspace design, you can meet both your company's economic challenges and your employees' expectations: it's the cornerstone of tomorrow's offices. No more headaches when it comes to balancing employee satisfaction and profitability: the HR and real estate manager duo is the key!

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Further information 🚀

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The role of the real estate manager is to manage and enhance the company's real estate assets, but also to guarantee an attractive working environment. This objective echoes the HR Director's imperative to ensure good working conditions for employees. Getting them to work together is therefore a matter of course.

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#2 Agile management of human and real estate resources

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Building a real estate strategy in line with recruitment and retention objectives is essential. To define your real estate requirements, you need to know how your workforce is evolving. 

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Regular communication between the HR department and the real estate manager will enable the company's real estate needs to be accurately identified and adapted to changes:

• opening a branch to support the company's expansion abroad;
• creation of satellite offices as an overflow solution following a recruitment wave ;
• on-demand workspaces for regional sales teams.

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There are many possible scenarios, but these few examples show just how closely real estate and HR strategies are linked.

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#3 Optimized workspaces and satisfied employees

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On the one hand, HR teams will be listening to employees' expectations. As a bonus, the choice of office organization (flex office for example) is often a matter for HR. On the other hand, real estate managers will manage workspaces (upkeep and maintenance, rental management, optimization of real estate assets, etc.). These are two different approaches to workspaces that need to coexist in order to co-construct an effective strategy.

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The alliance between HR and real estate managers will helpoptimize workspaces, by aligning real estate management with team needs. In practice, HR will be able to provide feedback on employees' uses, expectations and needs in terms of workspaces. For example, property managers can be informed of a lack of meeting rooms, a need for phone boxes or a deserted cafeteria. With this information from HR, they can arrange the offices accordingly. The result? An environment conducive to employee productivity and well-being.

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Toolbox 🧰

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For data on actual workspace usage, there are tools like Worklib. Analyze and manage your hybrid strategy with Worklib.

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Workspaces are real levers of performance. Companies can design more flexible working environments, adapted to the changing needs of their employees - a key factor in employee satisfaction.

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#4 A financial challenge

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Intelligent management of human and real estate resources enables substantial savings to be made and better use to be made of property investments. 

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The ever-decreasing office occupancy rate is a challenge at the crossroads between HR and real estate strategies. To optimize occupancy rates, several solutions exist, but they all require coordination between the two parties:

• Reduce real estate floor space;
• Opt for corpoworking;
• Adapting hybrid work policies ;
• Change the way the office is organized.

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For example, if the HR director decides to bring employees back to the office, by reducing the number of teleworking days per week, and the property manager drastically reduces real estate space, there's bound to be a problem. All these transformations require close communication and collaboration between the HR department and the property manager.

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Economic objectives weigh on both HR and real estate teams, but it's the alliance between these two departments that will have a positive financial impact for the company. 

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#5 CSR at the heart of action

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Over the past few years, CSR issues have become increasingly important in the world of work. In addition to legal constraints and national objectives, many employees want to share their values with their company. Here again, the union of HR and property managers is strategic.

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CSR is closely linked to corporate culture and has a considerable impact on the employer brand. As a result, CSR projects are often led by HR teams, although other departments are also involved in their implementation.

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A coalition between HR and property managers can helpintegrate CSR criteria into property management:

• eco-responsible workspace design ;
• optimizing waste management ;
• high energy standards in the construction and renovation of buildings.

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Promoting sustainable mobility requires both HR and real estate initiatives:

• installation of bicycle parking facilities;
• installation of showers and changing rooms ;
• limiting commuting distances through a teleworking policy.

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Optimizing the energy efficiency of workspaces can also influence HR strategies. Let's take the example of a very low office occupancy rate on Fridays. To reduce energy consumption, the property manager can propose cutting off electricity and heating on this day. To do this, HR needs to announce that the offices will be officially closed on Fridays. To ensure good working conditions for employees, HR and real estate managers can assess the benefits of providing on-demand workspaces to compensate for the closure.

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The introduction of hybrid working requires a new organization at every level. HR and real estate managers need to work together to anticipate and respond to changes in the labor market and in real estate. Joint, proactive change management will contribute to the company's long-term viability.

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<font size="-1">Nos sources</font>

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<font size="-1">(1) https://www.andrh.fr/article/Le-teletravail-post-covid-vu-par-les-DRH-Resultats-enquete-ANDRH-BCG </font>