CBRE CEO Bob Sulentic and his real estate brokerage firm are still searching for the best back-to-the-office strategies for workers and clients worldwide, but he's sure about one thing: He's energized by his 60-hour workweeks.
No matter how things shake out, the office will remain a critical nerve center for corporations even as the overall base of office use will probably shrink, Sulentic said on "The Weekly Take," CBRE's podcast hosted by Spencer Levy, the firm's global chief client officer and senior economic adviser.
"The first word I'd say is we're still figuring it out," Sulentic said. "I haven't met a single person that can speak with real confidence about where we're going to go, beyond confidence in the notion that there's a lot of uncertainty right now."
The office market could end up smaller once companies figure out their future space needs, said Sulentic, who has served as president and CEO of Dallas-based CBRE since late 2012.
"Everybody's trying to get there, and nobody knows exactly how they're going to get there," he said. "But there's going to be a significant base of office building use out there, probably less than we had before. And there's going to be some great new ideas and some creative ideas on how to use that office space and support the use of that office space with better and better technology."
Despite the uncertainty, Sulentic said it's "highly, highly likely there's going to be some hybrid version of where we were pre-COVID" and during COVID-19 because companies realized that alternatives exist to having employees in the office Monday through Friday. A blend of the traditional workweek and the various schedules that worked when people did their jobs remotely could be best, Sulentic said.
"We would just be unwise not to figure out a way to extract the good things about both in our forward-looking solutions about returning to the office," he said. "We know for sure that almost all companies want some version of being in the office," he said, adding that "they believe it helps to have culture. They believe it helps with problem solving."
Lots of organizations, Sulentic said, believe having employees in the office with others increases innovation and good strategies because "people bouncing ideas off each other results in greater creativity than people sitting alone and being apart from each other."
'Lost Time' Commuting
However, the inefficiency of workers traveling to and from the office a total of 10 times a week is a concern, Sulentic said. It's a challenge for parents, especially for those seeking child care, he added.
"All the challenges associated with commuting and what commuting does to the environment, the lost time associated with putting everybody in the car five days a week, twice a day. So there's challenges with both of the models we've been through that we're going to try to solve," Sulentic said. CBRE didn't respond to a request for a further comment.
When it comes to work-life balance, Sulentic said employees should determine what's best for them.
"Some people would say, 'I can't work more than 40 hours a week and be comfortable and be a happy human being,'" Sulentic said. "And other people would say, 'I get it. But you know what? I have a ton of friends at work and I take great pleasure from the work I do.'"
Sulentic has found his sweet spot, and it's centered on 50% longer workweeks than what's standard.
"I consider it my hobby, and therefore I can work 60 hours a week and I feel fine," Sulentic said. "I feel energized. I feel great with my family, I feel great with my friends, and I can find a way to do the other things I want to do. So you have to figure out — nobody can tell you or should tell you what the formula for balance is in your life."
In 2021, Sulentic was rewarded for his long hours and CBRE's strong year with a total compensation package of more than $13.9 million. The ratio of his pay to the median employee's annual pay at CBRE last year of $57,349 was 243:1, according to the brokerage's 2022 proxy statement.
In February, CBRE, which ranks as the No. 1 commercial property services firm by revenue in the world, said it plans to bump Sulentic's target total compensation for this year up to $18.5 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.