Christian Ulbrich’s first job involved sitting on a pod of five desks, right next to his boss. “I could consistently learn by just observing him, overhearing his conversations, asking him quick questions, and so my learning experience was fantastic. It would have never been possible if I had worked from home.”
His son had a different experience. His first job was during the COVID-19 pandemic, and for the first 15 months was largely remote. “He was working from home, and he was devastated,” Ulbrich told me. “The ability to learn for him was minimized.”
Ulbrich is the CEO of the real estate giant, JLL, so has skin in the game. Position 175 on the Fortune 500 (up from 188 a year earlier)—its share price hit a high of $393 in August, compared with a five-year low of $123 in 2023. On its Q2 earnings call in July, Ulbrich announced JLL was raising its profit guidance, given 11% revenue growth across the business and a 21% increase in revenue from advisory property services. The in-office market is back.
“From a plain efficiency point of view, and if we generalize, it’s clearly more efficient to have people in the office than if they work from home,” he said. “The benefit which you gain from people interacting, communicating, sharing best practice, sharing ideas is massive—outweighing the cost of the office space. Therefore, to have people coming to an office is, for almost all companies, beneficial.”
Office life is not just for executives who want to see employees and worry about productivity slumps from bedroom-bound staff. Whatever level you are at, sitting with others is key.
“I strongly believe that it is beneficial for the majority of co-workers,” Ulbrich said. “We have moved into a world where what you learned at university is probably three years later more or less obsolete. We’re in that [era] now of lifelong learning. You need your co-workers to continue learning, and how can you do that? You can do that in an office.
“Does that mean that you have to come to the office every day of the week? Probably not. And I believe, and we practice that at JLL, that there is [a need for] flexibility. But the core place for work is the office. And if there is a reason that people have to stay a day at home, they can stay that day at home and work from there. But the basic principle is they have to come to the office.”
Ulbrich is sitting in JLL’s new offices in the City of London, the company’s original home and the location of its first “shop” in 1783. Much of the building material and furniture is recycled, and there are few separate offices (Ulbrich thinks there is “one corner office” across the three floors).
“It has to be absolutely state of the art with regards to sustainability,” he said. “It has to be in a very professional location, and it has to be really good architecture—which is a lot of light and terraces and all the elements which would make our colleagues feel comfortable.” If you want people to work from offices, they had better be good ones.
Although now headquartered in Chicago, Ulbrich (from Germany) says that London is the leading global location for business, whatever New York might say.
“It has to be absolutely state of the art with regards to sustainability”
Christian Ulbrich
“It’s always dangerous to ask a European about these things because if you ask an American, they will talk about New York, and maybe if you ask a Chinese [person], they will talk about Shanghai or Hong Kong, and then others about Singapore,” he said. “I’m absolutely convinced, and I also say that in the U.S., I believe London is the global hub because it’s the city which is able to attract pretty much everybody, no matter what their racial background is, their country passport is. They all like to come to London, whereas some people would be hesitant to come to New York, and other people will be hesitant to come to China. Everybody is coming to London.”
Chicago is certainly a very fine city. But it will never have Buckingham Palace, red buses, red post boxes, the Houses of Parliament and global finance—however hard it tries.
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