I have noticed that many of my younger clients have ditched the traditional office and have embraced the home office with support from a virtual office that offers a shared receptionist, conference rooms, and even copiers and printers.
From my perspective of a subcontractor/vendor of process service and private investigations, I see changes in how they operate. They are much more involved and engaged with their cases and clients. Since a lot of the financial pressure is off of having to pay rent and so many payroll checks, they now spend more time and money on their cases, not to mention the fact that they seem happier because they are spending more time with their families.
One client told me, he was already living at work so he brought work home and now saves thousands in rent, payroll, parking, gas, and food and he spends far less time in our infamous traffic dealing with our lovely world-class drivers.
Some even have their own staff who largely works from their own homes and they all work together seamlessly on networks. For those who have staff, their staff are often multi-taskers. In the past when attorneys had traditional offices, they also had a receptionist, a secretary and maybe even a paralegal. Now, if they hire support staff, the employee is expected to do all three jobs. Their staff seem more invested in their jobs because they really appreciate working from home and the savings that comes with that.
Other clients who still want offices, have left the Downtown/Brickell area and have moved to locations closer to home that are far less expensive, they are much larger, they have ample parking and they deal with far less traffic.
I don't see a drop in work flow coming my way so I assume the moves have not hurt their business. If this continues, I see dark times ahead for landlords of Downtown Miami and Brickell offices. They are going to have to adapt and overcome and offer never-before seen deals to bring back renters.
Times are changing. #virtualoffice #homeoffices
