I think the "lab space" requirement is going to drive a lot of the WFH-or-not office space planning among employers that don't fall into the "come in for no reason other than I said so" category.
In my case, I work in robotics. Somebody working on the perception stack software and going to the occasional zoom meeting has little reason to show up at the office beyond random hallway meetings and free micro-kitchen snacks. A machinist in the prototyping lab, on the other hand, needs to be in front of the giant, expensive CNC machine. For me personally, I have a mix of coding days and lab days, and WFH or go in according to the tasks of the day.
Clued-in companies are going to adjust their real-estate mix. I predict a drop in the fraction of commercial space that consists of carpeted offices.
I agree. My role is software engineering, but in industrial healthcare automation - so I come in when I need to make stuff move in meatspace. Mostly a few days a week. We don’t really have standard offices though - it’s either a cube or in the lab 50/50 hoping the magic smoke doesn’t leak out because I coded that thing wrong…
>> I think the "lab space" requirement is going to drive a lot of the WFH-or-not office space planning among employers that don't fall into the "come in for no reason other than I said so" category.
I wonder if there will be a another push for those jobs to go to lower cost countries.
Some of those jobs are already in lower cost countries but some can't be outsourced because they rely on military contracts (can only be worked on by US employees).
I once worked on an offshore company that did staff augmentation for american robotics companies, we did mostly software because the hardware was illegal to export.
There may be a lot of cost savings in labor but there’s a huge risk in technology transfer & following lab protocols. In biotech lab culture and best practices are actually a tighter package than “low” skill factory work. So you get really variable outcomes when you unbundle the lab.
In my case, I work in robotics. Somebody working on the perception stack software and going to the occasional zoom meeting has little reason to show up at the office beyond random hallway meetings and free micro-kitchen snacks. A machinist in the prototyping lab, on the other hand, needs to be in front of the giant, expensive CNC machine. For me personally, I have a mix of coding days and lab days, and WFH or go in according to the tasks of the day.
Clued-in companies are going to adjust their real-estate mix. I predict a drop in the fraction of commercial space that consists of carpeted offices.