#officespace

Work in 100 Magellan. This week, some of the common space/collaboration zones disappeared (big tables, couches). Cleared out just enough room on 3W to cram in 8 more desks between existing rows in a frw places. So I guess re-opening 200 to make room isn’t happening.

With so many office buildings sitting half empty, it raises an interesting question:

What if companies sold some of their real estate and embraced a truly virtual workforce?

Many offices already feel sparse, with some departments coming in fewer days than company policy requires. Meanwhile, businesses continue paying for office space, utilities, maintenance, security and other overhead costs.

Could those savings be better invested in employees, technology, innovation, or customer experience instead?

Remote work isn’t the right fit for every role, but for many positions, the traditional office footprint may no longer make financial sense.

TP&E gets assigned offices and, apparently, the refrigerated snacks vanish at the same time.

Honestly, I'd take a dedicated office over free snacks every day of the week, so this isn't really about the snacks. I'm just amused by how often we hear about transparency and then find out about changes after the fact.

I'm also curious how much the snack program was actually costing. It seems hard to believe refrigerated snacks were breaking the budget, especially in a year when the company is likely doing quite well. Maybe there's context I'm missing.

It’s because our so-called leadership are all id1ots and completely out of touch with what the average employee does here. For example, they tout the importance and success of meeting-free fridays. Don’t know about you all, but I’m still having meetings on fridays.

And, their justification for meeting-free Fridays is to wallow employees the ability to “connect with colleagues.” First off, the average employee is too busy to just set aside time to “connect” for the sake of connecting. Second, our colleagues are all spread out at different sites so it’s hard to “connect” on a teams call. Third, none of us have our own desks anymore, we have community seating, so even if we work at the same site, none of us even sit in the same area to “connect.” Forth, good luck finding an open area to “connect” in.

Since leadership wanted to try and cover-up their bad real estate deals and are packing us all in to the brim, there are never any conference rooms or lounges available. The other day, I saw two employees working in a focus room meant for one employee. Yeah, it’s getting that bad! Don’t let “leadership” fool you. They are just a bunch of inept employees who either have a piece of paper stating otherwise, got lucky or knew someone already in that “leadership” circle.

Not sure if others have noticed, but the Frisco executive center is now sharing space with Intuit employees. It’s been noticeably more crowded lately and it doesn’t feel like the same place it was when we first moved in.

Which honestly brings up something I’ve been thinking about for a while — was Frisco even the right call to begin with?

The location is surrounded by toll roads. For a lot of us commuting in every day, there’s really no way around it. Those tolls add up and that cost falls on employees, not the company. That felt like an oversight when we moved in and it still does.

And now we’re sharing the space with an outside company? That wasn’t exactly part of the pitch when this place was built. So it makes you wonder — is this a cash flow issue? Or did the business case for building here just not hold up the way leadership said it would?

Either way, it’s a fair question. The people who made this decision aren’t the ones paying tolls every morning to get there.

By the looks of the Midland office, the mothership is going to be shutting it down soon. No one‘s ever there they’ve closed the whole floor and the other ones are maybe 50% full. It’s only a matter of time before they start leasing out one of the towers. If I were one of the employees there, I would start looking at other competitors that value people close to the wellhead.

The amount of skeletons we are moving with is too much for the old and too cheap to quit the lease tiny quarters. Wait! That will be for the new owners to bear. Sails a Way buckaroos!

The Intuit Atlanta office just listed for rent

https://www.showcase.com/405-n-angier-ave-ne-atlanta-ga-30308/28500221/

is the 5 day RTO expected for the durham office? There's barely any space!

They sent an email re buildings A and B in Chandler. What do you think, will we get a stupid open office design with no cubicles, or a layout that will cram us in further so that we can all come in 5 days/week? Both? I loathe the open office setup, it's so distracting.

Economic opportunity is one of the societal issues of our time, and Linkedin has been and will continue to be the platform that professionals and companies turn to as they navigate the changing world of work. For us to meet this moment, we must ready ourselves to deliver a step change in impact across our products, businesses, and platforms, while continuing to operate more profitably. We need to reinvent how we work, with agile teams focused on our highest priorities, and by shifting investments toward areas such as infrastructure to fulfill our mission and vision over the long term. This requires hard prioritization and tradeoffs.

Today I'm sharing the difficult decision that I, along with our leadership team, have made to reduce roles across GBO, Marketing, Engineering and Product. If you are impacted, or proposed to be impacted in EMEA & APAC, by these changes, you will receive a calendar invite to a notification meeting within the next hour. For impacted teams, you'll learn more about your org-specific information from your leaders shortly, and updates will be added to go/CompanyExchange throughout today.

In addition to role reductions, we are scaling back investments in some areas including marketing campaigns, vendor spend, customer events, and underutilized office space, so we can focus teams on priorities that have the broadest impact with the highest ROl. You will receive details about these changes from respective functional leaders.

I want to acknowledge and thank those who will be leaving Linkedin. You have helped build LinkedIn's culture and platform into what it is today, and I hope you are proud of the lasting impact your work will continue to have on our members, customers, and colleagues.
For those staying, first and foremost, I would like to invite you to support our impacted colleagues. We will move forward together with focus and clear priorities to reach our potential as the platform that the world's professionals and companies increasingly turn to.

Thank you, again, to our teammates who are departing, and to everyone across LinkedIn who continues to show up and support each other.

Dan

BCC: All Global Employees

I’ve been loving the open-plan HMP setup and how much it’s boosted real collaboration, but I feel like we’re leaving some upside on the table. A lot of the private offices were only supposed to be temporary, yet plenty of people (especially in Subsurface and the old CTC groups) are still camped out in them long-term. It’s starting to feel like the last holdouts keeping us from going full one-team.

If we accelerated the rollout and moved everyone into the open plan, it would be a game changer. No more closed doors creating little silos. Just full visibility, spontaneous conversations, and everyone including our geologists and reservoir engineers ... mixing it up with the rest of the business every day. That kind of constant collaboration would help us move faster, share knowledge better, and really crush the competition.
Management has already shown they’re willing to make bold calls on workspace. Speeding this up and finally transitioning Subsurface out of those temporary offices would send a strong message and unlock even more of the culture and performance gains we’ve been seeing.

Chevrons heading in the right direction. Let’s finish what we started and make the open environment the standard everywhere. Anyone else think it’s time to push harder on this? Especially curious how the field and ops folks see it when you’re in the office. Would getting Subsurface fully into the open plan help with handoffs and alignment, or am I off base?

Has anyone received any reliable information on how long Phase One will last? In the 900 building in Smithfield, it’s a total nightmare. Not enough bathrooms, desks, parking spots, takes 30 minutes to get off campus, etc - and that’s just for 50/50. I realize the upper crust wants huge attrition numbers but some of us have no choice. This toxic environment is about to get worse - amazing.

We’re almost at a year of return to office and I still don’t have a desk. Anyone else?

There has been some chatter around the Blue Ash offices that the goal is to move eveyone downtown?

Is there any truth to this?

I can’t imagine there is enough office space but I could be wrong.

I know that would personally make me feel much better about my Phase 2 colleagues being excused from RTO, while the rest of us are required to be in the office doing the same exact job. Maybe some motivational posters? The kitten dangling from a tree branch that says “hang in there”?

I was in the office and there was a lady repeatedly peeking into all the focus/conferences rooms on my floor. Not sure if she was just a busy body or it was her job. I hope people continue to use those rooms so at least there’s less people in open areas. There’s little to no separation between the cube spaces and it gets loud. Funny how it’s acknowledged that those rooms help people to focus yet there is a horrible open space design everywhere with no effort to make it a better experience.

I know the old Dubin office opened at Polaris but is that place still there? Just wondering. I left the Dublin a couple years before it officially shut down. I've seen posts on this site saying it was going away but never heard if that actually happened.

What gives? Anyone know of a plan to resolve the congestion in the near future?

Flex space office criticisms focus on reduced employee privacy, increased distractions, and the loss of personal, consistent workstations, leading to lower employee satisfaction and engagement. Critics highlight challenges with noise, reduced productivity for focus-driven work, and increased hygiene risks, along with logistical hurdles in managing desk-sharing and shared amenity spaces

Key criticisms of flexible office spaces include:

Lack of Privacy and Focus: The open-plan nature of many flex spaces introduces constant distractions and noise, which hinders concentration.

Depersonalization and Low Morale: The absence of dedicated, assigned desks can lead to a feeling of being interchangeable, reducing employee engagement and loyalty to the workplace.

Productivity Declines: Studies indicate that while teamwork might be supported, tasks requiring high concentration can suffer in flexible environments.

Health and Hygiene Concerns: Shared desks and equipment, along with high-density, high-traffic setups, can increase the risk of illness transmission

.Logistical Challenges: Managing, booking, and maintaining cleanliness in flex spaces is a challenge, requiring robust systems to prevent frustration.Poor Environmental Control: Flex buildings often have less natural light and inferior environmental comfort compared to traditional offices.

I wonder if they’ll move the Brantford call centre, the Brantford police have always wanted the space. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/enbridge-buys-former-costco-site-for-25-5m-bringing-jobs-to-south-london

Why does leadership expect us to be in the office if there’s never enough seating?

Why do people reserve seats everyday and never show up?

Why are we even allowed to reserve seats in the first place for weeks out??

Memo went out that Coral campus was sold, but we're in a lease back agreement and will stay from 18-36 months until Fiserv finds a new campus.

They are staying in South Florida, that much was clear. Where to next? Hoping it's not Miami.

https://www.workspaceproperty.com/property/7628-thorndike-road-greensboro-nc-27409/

Bridget Engle, whose 2024 compensation was $22.11 million, admitted on a town hall call today that employees were being forced to sit on the floor due to lack of space. This is reminiscent of textile mill workers who were forced to wear diapers because they were not allowed sufficient bathroom breaks. Ms. Engle should be ashamed and embarrassed at this inhumane treatment. The fact that she can casually admit this shows her complete lack of empathy and awareness. Her NUMBER ONE priority should be immediately resolving this issue, publicly apologizing to all employees, and personally apologizing to the affected employees.

So, Penn 2 is off the table. Instead gonna consolidate offices in existing space at 1095 Ave of the Americas. Here come the cuts…

I have it on good authority that all offices will be back from April.
S&T will relocate to the Hess tower. Plenty of office space for all.

What are we going to do with floor 47?

So you're mandated to go into the office and you don't have assigned seats? I saw someone say they have to go in before 7am in order to get a seat? Diabolical.

I am sure the majority of people in Burlington are enjoying their time WFH while smaller desks, and cramped quarters will be taking effect in the building for our return. I can speak for myself when I say my mental health has been so much better for the last 5 weeks, however knowing this is our last week WFH (fingers crossed it gets extended) my anxiety is creeping about returning to the office..

Mods pulled xxon post saying they have issues with unassigned space.

How about the mangers stop saving spaces and tell us where we can and can’t sit.

It’s first come first serve. Thats the whole model

Global sportswear giant Nike has expanded its presence in India by leasing 126,000 sq ft of premium office space in the Olympia Building at Bagmane Tech Park, Bengaluru. This strategic move highlights Nike’s commitment to strengthening its corporate operations in one of India’s most competitive commercial real estate markets.

Bagmane Tech Park, located in C V Raman Nagar, is a leading business hub hosting multinational technology firms, consumer brands, and professional service providers. Nike’s new leased space allows the company to access top talent and modern office infrastructure, aligning with the growing demand for large, contiguous office spaces in Bengaluru.

While lease terms and financials remain undisclosed, the acquisition signals Nike’s long-term commitment to India’s growing market. Bengaluru continues to attract multinational companies seeking Grade A commercial properties, ideal for regional offices, technology teams, and operational hubs.

This transaction is comparable to prominent Bengaluru real estate projects such as Sobha Galera in Kannamangala and Prestige Evergreen in Whitefield, which have drawn attention for their prime locations and modern amenities. Nike’s lease also mirrors the trend of investing in pre-launch projects, where corporates secure high-quality office and commercial spaces ahead of market competition.

By taking this step, Nike reinforces Bengaluru’s position as a preferred destination for global expansions, emphasizing the city’s role as a hub for talent, innovation, and corporate growth. The move also strengthens the appeal of business parks like Bagmane Tech Park, which continues to attract multinational tenants seeking premium infrastructure and connectivity.

I don’t think Truist has enough office space to fit everyone. I traveled at a few of their office locations(ATL, CLT, Raleigh/Greensboro). It doesn’t look like there is enough room. Especially in the Charlotte office and the new Battery location.

It's kinda nuts because the sushi they sell at the cafeteria is quite literally the same sushi you buy at HEB. Still has the original packaging and stickers - minus the HEB price tag - but charge almost double for it lol. 2 hard boiled eggs in a little container is $4.50? I can buy a dozen eggs for less than that. An egg, cheese and bacon breakfast taco is 3.50 but 99% of the time there is no cheese and/or bacon? yeah dawg, i'll just scan it, pretend to pay and leave.

Call it what you want but, if they are making us be in office 5 days/week then fu--ing step up the gd cafeteria food and make it a LOT cheaper. Not that I really care much as I only go to office from 10am-12pm anyways but jesus...

How’d it go for everyone?

I heard multiple times, “no, those spaces are for x-x team or person.”

No they aren’t. We’re not saving you space b/c you’re special. If we’re doing unassigned, that means you too buddy.

The temperature could feel like as low as -4 F next week, and yet we still have to come to office and talk to people all over the world. But hey! our office is nice and warm right? My life is a beautiful dream. Thank you Robin!

How is your RTO going?
I hear that all offices are packed and do not have enough space, not enough conference rooms, etc…. Certainly the case in Dallas and Atlanta!

I do go 3 times a week, but just badge in and go home right away.

Been trying to organize a badge-in service, but looks like all people are a bunch of pu----s…

Time to raise up and organize an insurrection against the IBM Execs!

The figure of $115 per square foot refers to the asking rent for the new Verizon corporate headquarters office space in Manhattan's Penn 2 tower, a lease signed in July 2025.

Verizon signed a 19-year lease for more than 195,000 square feet across the 8th through 10th floors of the Penn 2 building, located near Penn Station.

The asking rent for this specific office space was reported to be $115 per square foot.

Approximately 1,000 corporate employees are expected to work in the new location starting in 2026, consolidating existing offices from other Manhattan locations.

So now the plan is to demolish the Plano site and build a brand new 45-acre campus from scratch. For one of the most levered companies in the world, still buried under massive debt.

This is the same leadership that burned hundreds of billions on T-Mobile, DirecTV, xandr, and WarnerMedia (among others). The same person making another massive, irreversible capital bet. And we’re supposed to believe this time it’s different?

What makes this even worse is the human cost. Over the last two years, employees uprooted their lives and relocated from all over the country to Dallas because the company told them to. Now leadership is moving locations again like a shell game, sc--wing over the very people who did what they were asked. No apology. No accountability.

And let’s ki-l the lie about the employee survey. It did not say “build us a new office.” It said people don’t want to be in offices at all, ever. Spinning that into a multi-billion-dollar campus no one wants or needs is insulting.

We also just lit $100 million on fire upgrading the Dallas office a few years ago. Add that to the pile.

At this point, the board can’t pretend they don’t see what’s happening. These decisions and their outcomes are public. If they continue to allow this, they’re complicit in the value destruction.

Employees will pay through lost bonuses and broken trust. Shareholders will pay through debt and wasted capital. And leadership will keep doubling down because no one is stopping them.

This isn’t strategy. It’s reckless. And it’s long past time for the board to intervene. End RTO, divest from the useless office space and improve the balance sheet. It’s not that hard to understand.

Moving HQ from Dallas to Plano means billions poured into the new campus, long term lease, buildouts, utilities, security, and facilities just to force people into offices to sit on video calls. All cost. No return.

There’s a cheaper, smarter option leadership refuses to touch.

End five day RTO. Shrink or break the leases. Go remote first.

Office space costs large companies roughly $12,000 to $18,000 per employee per year. With roughly 130,000 employees, that’s $1.5 to $2.3 billion every single year. Over five years, up to $11 billion. Over ten years, north of $20 billion.

Instead of saving billions, leadership is lighting it on fire to defend a failed work model. Plano isn’t a strategy. Five day RTO isn’t leadership. It’s just another expensive mistake employees and shareholders will pay for.