We’ve come a long way, baby, but we still have a long way to go! 

Wow, 40 years is a long time and the commercial property market has come a long way. We’re now a legitimate asset class. We have lots and lots of people following our industry, and we have more journals and other publications focused on us. We have robust equity and debt markets to facilitate investments, and more and more professionals are being trained to better understand how these complex investments work. There are large numbers of students in our classroom and lots of people are realising it’s a lot more fun to work with a real asset, to kick the tyres and not necessarily just watch a stock price move.  

Forty years ago, we began to look more seriously at real estate as an investment class and now we have enormous amounts of cash focused on our industry. I’ve been in this field for almost the entire time. I took my first real estate class in 1983. At times the market seems to have grown up very, very slowly, but at points it feels like it has passed by in the blink of an eye. So many things have changed over these past four decades and they continue to change rapidly –particularly these past few years, as technology has advanced and proptech has become the new darling of venture capital and alternative investments, the focus of so many of our institutional funds. But there are still some things that are very slow to change.    

These Covid times have created a lot of tension and stress in people’s lives. As usual, property is right in the middle of the conversation. As Ely once said, “Under all is land” and as we try to return to ‘normal’, we are facing a strong debate as to what is best for our urban centres, our businesses and our employees. The current debate on work from home (WFH) or what I like to call butts in seats, is raging. I cannot help but notice the diversity of the voices asking/demanding flexibility vs the relatively homogenous set of voices on the other side. The predominant gender in our sector is male and the predominant race white. There is limited diversity in the higher ranks of our profession and in the ranks of our leaders. Having been one of the first female real estate academics with children, I’m in full support of companies embracing WFH and hybrid modes to provide flexibility so employees can better balance their lives.   

I always thought I had to be in the office and I had to work long hours. But, as I look back on my life as a working mom raising two children 15 months apart, I realise the face time/office time was not my most productive. And my 16 to 18-hour work day was probably not the healthiest for me or my family. And, if I’m honest, it was probably not the best for my students or my colleagues. I used to say, “I could do it all”.  I was super woman. But I regularly worked a five-shift day, depriving myself of sleep and living on coffee. I would regularly rise at 4:30 or 5am. Not to work out or do yoga and spend time on myself, but to check emails and work on a paper or finish some grading. The house was quiet. I could concentrate.

Then it was time for the mad dash to get kids up and begin the first parent shift. Scrambling to get them ready.  Undoubtedly this two to three-hour shift was full of coaxing, prodding and pleading. I needed to get them up, fed, dressed and dropped off. Then the drive to daycare or school and the hope we had left early enough to beat the traffic. Tearful goodbyes or last-minute emergencies as something was left behind at the house and the scramble to correct the mistake. 

I would arrive at the office, so happy to be where it was quiet and I was alone. I was particularly fond of Mondays, since the weekends were never dull. Filled with housework, laundry, cleaning, birthday parties, sporting events and, of course, work squeezed in when it could be. By 8 or 8:30am, I would be ready for the paid work day. I would work hard trying to get everything done. Dodging people so not a minute was wasted. Skipped lunch. There was too much to do as I knew I had to be out at 5 or 5:30pm or there would be a big fine to pay. At one daycare, there was a three-strikes-you’re-out policy. I didn’t want to be the parent who got their kid kicked out of daycare! Then the dreaded commute home, always a stressful situation. Would I make it in time? Who could I call to go and get the kids for me? What will I owe them in return? How could I repay them?

Then shift four started. Focus on the family. Focus on the kids. What will we have for dinner? Who is helping with homework? Time for baths, bedtime stories and finally I would crawl in to lie with them. Many nights I would fall asleep with them for an hour or two. Then, time for shift five. Time to work on grading, my lectures or the paper that needed editing. Fortunately, I had a lot of co-authors that were overseas. We used to joke we could work 24/7 on a paper as one author was in the UK, another in Australia. It reality what it meant was I could work early or late and still be able to make my contributions to the paper. 

Then about midnight I would catch a few hours of sleep, hoping the kids didn’t wake from a bad dream or wake up sick in the morning. That would ruin all the best laid plans, as we had no fall back. No family to help. The great debate of who had the more important meetings that day would commence. We muddled through hoping that the kids would turn out alright and that all would be well at the end of the day.

So, I completely empathise with all the parents of young children and also those that have significant responsibilities to help aging parents or sick friends. Covid has shone a bright light on the inequities in this world and the less-than-humane way we’ve been living our lives, particularly the working women. Working from home is definitely easier and cheaper in so many ways that I personally don’t see how we can nor do I think we should go back to the good old days or ‘normal’. If an employee has family commitments or other things they need/want to do during traditional business hours, they should be able to work early, work late or on the weekend to make sure the job gets done. You can and you should trust them. There is no magic about 9-5 nor sitting at a desk or a bullpen in an office.  

Our recent ability to pivot and remain productive through Covid shows it can be done. I don’t like to talk about a problem without providing a solution, so in my next column I will provide some ideas for what could be done to set our world up for a more humane workplace, where one does not have to choose between family and career.