Lyft will rent out nearly 50% of its office space after it allows worker to be ‘fully flexible’

Lyft announced the company will rent out nearly half of its office spaces in San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, and Nashville, as the ride-share company shifted to allowing workers to live wherever they wanted earlier this year.

The company said it will sublease parts of its offices in major US cities, which is 45 percent of the combined 615,000 square feet across all four workspaces.

Other firms will be able to rent the space as Lyft pares back its square footage to let staff work from home. 

More than 4,000 office employees were offered to permanently work remotely in March as the company strived to ‘support an extraordinary office experience that brings people together intentionally and organically, without set days or obligations.’

After the transition, the company noticed more gaps in previously occupied seats around the four offices as the spaces weren’t ‘being utilized the way it previously ways.’

‘While we continue to believe that in-person connections are important, many of our team members opted to work remotely after we shifted to a flexible workplace strategy,’ a Lyft spokesperson told Bloomberg.

 Lyft joined the list of companies, that plan to sell or rent out portions of their office spaces, including Yelp – who allows employees to work remotely with the option of spending one or more days in the office.

Meanwhile, as the pandemic shifted some companies towards a lenient work-from-home option, other companies refused to rid of office spaces.

Apple staffers have hit back at the company’s call for workers to return to the office at least three days a week next month – with a petition that argues the policy is too restrictive and ignores their successful shift to remote work during the pandemic.

The petition was in response to an all-employee memo from chief executive Tim Cook, who last week said workers would have to come into the office for at least three days a week starting in early September. 

Now employees are attempting to retain their work-from-home flexible arrangements, because it makes them ‘happier and more productive.’

The company had previously scrapped a similar plan to bring workers back to its Cupertino office three days a week in May, due to a surge in COVID cases in California.

Apple currently allows all of its 36,000 staffers to work remotely – a policy that Cook, 61, for the past several months has tried to reverse.

The company revitalized those efforts last Monday, notifying workers they would be required to show up to work in person at least three days a week starting September 5, including Tuesdays, Thursdays and a third day to be determined by staff. 

The petition drive has so far collected 232 signatures, and puts pressure on the iPhone maker as the date for the policy’s planned start approaches. 

Google has revolted against the remote workplace trend and announced in January that a $1 billion building was purchased in London.

The building located on the West End is expected to be a headquarters for some of the company’s 7,000 UK-based employees. Across the UK, the companies various property’s will have the capacity for about 10,000 employees.

Aside from the billion dollar purchase, Google said they planned on remodeling their other UK offices to adapt towards ‘the needs of a future workspace.’

Innovated setups to ‘improve wellbeing’ are expected to support ‘focused work’ and collaboration, including outdoor workspaces.