Frank Rosenbaum, CEO of CBRE Luxembourg, answered our questions to mark the launch of the Office Space of the Year 2021 competition. (Photo: Blitz Agency)

Frank Rosenbaum, CEO of CBRE Luxembourg, answered our questions to mark the launch of the Office Space of the Year 2021 competition. (Photo: Blitz Agency)

To mark the launch of the CBRE Office Space of the Year competition in which Paperjam is a partner, we asked Frank Rosenbaum, CEO of CBRE Luxembourg, three questions.

Céline Coubray:  is continuing the Office Space of the Year competition in a context still marked by teleworking. Is it more than ever the time for companies to be proud of their offices?

Frank Rosenbaum: Absolutely! I would even say that it is the ideal moment for all of us, business leaders, to rethink our offices and to be proud to welcome our employees in the best conditions.

I think that after the most violent wave of covid that hit us in the last quarter of 2020, everyone focused only on teleworking, whereas many companies, and we were one of them, had restarted their activity almost normally, respecting the gauges, the health precautions and the social distances of course. Let's not forget that the telework we were all forced to do was only the consequence of an exceptional situation of a world health crisis. Before this crisis, even if the subject was occasionally addressed in certain professions and specific functions, the use of telework was actually very rare.

Of course, this crisis has made us aware that it is possible to work from home when forced to do so, but I don't think and personally don't hope that this will become a 'norm'. Luxembourg has almost 38,000 companies in the service sector (excluding banks and construction), of which CBRE Luxembourg is also a part, and I find it hard to imagine that overnight we will be able to carry out our service-oriented job in front of our PCs only from home.

And to answer the initial question, yes, each company will have to adapt its work surfaces in order to provide its employees with the comfort, well-being and security that will make them come to the office in a serene manner. As we have already said in our last conferences, 'it is the home that must come to the office'; not the other way around.

With an overuse of telework, there is a real risk of isolation, collective deconstruction or even the disintegration of socio-professional links. And the culture of a company, which enables it to recruit, but above all to keep its talents, cannot be learned through a videoconference screen.

Have you seen any significant changes in the office property market in recent months?

Yes of course, as explained above, many company managers are asking themselves the right questions about the space they have available, but above all how to make it pleasant to live in and above all how to make everyone feel safe.

I have heard and read many times that banks or other financial institutions are thinking of reducing their current space by up to 30%. Personally, I think the opposite is true, because in order to provide real comfort to their employees, companies should rather 'loosen up', improve the quality of the workstations by giving them light, but also use the less 'noble' spaces to create places for relaxation, concentration or even meetings/exchanges, which we were sorely lacking in the last 18 months. We are even accompanying developers in projects that offer employees covered outdoor work spaces for the good weather.

This too is an effect of the crisis, in that we have had to learn to 'live' more outdoors, which is common in big cities like Paris, but less so in Luxembourg.

Add to this a Luxembourg economy that is still growing, an average transaction size that is increasing and construction in the tertiary sector that is not weakening, I do not see any significant changes in the coming quarters. Finally, as the job market is so tight in Luxembourg, I am convinced that companies will put in place the best working environment to recruit talent and as said before, to keep it!

Do you think that this 2021 edition will be a milestone in the history of this competition?

Not necessarily, as the reflections on the announced changes are ongoing and I think we will only have the first concrete effects or results next year, for our next edition in 2022.

Until then, I am sure we will see some great projects entering this year's competition, which will have great design proposals to share with us."

To enter the competition, simply submit an application before 12 November.

This article was originally published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.