The COVID-19 Impact on Workplace Designers

Economy, crisis, and trend experts around the globe are attempting to capture and predict how our current and future world looks post-COVID-19. It’s a difficult task and a moving target – one that we won’t pretend to offer any such expertise toward.

However, all of us are wondering, as we work diligently from home (or on-the-job if required)…what will all of this mean for me and my job in the next few months? The next year? Five years? Will my job, if I have one, change at all? Will I be working with less? Will I be working more from home? What challenges does my industry face?

At officeinsight, we’ve been gathering a sense of all of these things, via feedback from our industry pals, and innovative new tools, and the best information our industry has put forth to begin creating an accurate picture of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Photo: courtesy of IIDA

Our representative industry organizations in the workplace design community have diligently begun investigating the state of the industry and their members’ concerns. The IIDA has a great website dedicated to COVID-19 support, available here.

And, in addition to providing a variety of support resources, one of the most valuable contributions we’ve seen is ASID’s COVID-19 Pulse Survey.

“In response to COVID-19 and its impact on the economy, interior design industry, business, and interior design professionals, ASID is conducting a ‘pulse survey’ every two weeks (starting March 31, 2020) to identify issues interior design businesses and professionals are experiencing now,” notes the survey. “This industry-wide survey was developed to assess the impact on current projects and business performance, identify challenges professionals are facing and gather insights for advancing the profession during this time.”

The Pulse survey results are updated with its most recent findings every first and third Monday of the month.

We spoke to ASID’s director of research and knowledge management, Dr. Susan Chung, about the ongoing Pulse survey, what it measures, and the general buzzing around at ASID during this time. ASID, located in downtown Washington, D.C., started working from home March 11, and it started an internal COVID-19-response task force shortly thereafter.

“There were a lot of unknowns at the beginning of the pandemic, and we wanted to make sure our employees felt safe and supported,” Dr. Chung said. “For us, working from home was a relatively easy transition. We had had a work-from-home policy and other policies in place before the transition, ever since we earned WELL certification.”

“We started the internal task force to begin looking at what type of resources we should be providing, and to see where the industry is at. We want to keep a team focused on what we’re seeing, on the conversation, and to find ways to communicate it.”

“We had already had an economic outlook webinar scheduled before the shelter-in-place mandates began, on March 18, and so we decided to focus that webinar specifically on COVID-19. Once that happened, we knew we wanted to make more available opportunities for people to connect.”

The task force also started putting together a complete COVID-19 Resources site, available to the public. And on March 23rd, it launched its first COVID-19 Pulse Survey, modeled after Price Waterhouse Cooper’s COVID-19 CFO Pulse Survey.

“We really wanted to put some immediacy around this, with a turnaround within a week,” Dr. Chung said. “It would obviously be a good opportunity to collect data, but also a way for our industry members to tell us what they need – and the context behind those needs, so that we could then relay that info back to them and to our industry partners. The survey serves as a connector of the people and firms working in our industry.”

“At the core of the survey is understanding the impact of the pandemic on the interior design business, as well as professional life. We wanted to get a sense of our everyone’s biggest concerns.”

The survey also seeks to understand how people are gauging the time it will take for their businesses to recover post-virus.

“Understanding the predicted recovery time was really important to us because we really want to gauge the resilience of our industry – of how long it will take for design firms to spring back from this,” said Dr. Chung. “We asked, ‘What is the impact you’re experiencing now,’ and then also, ‘How resilient do you feel you’ll be moving forward?’”

“One measure I put a lot of focus on is the correlation between the level of concern people feel and the recovery time people were estimating. In the first survey, there was a big correlation, but in the second survey the correlation wasn’t as strong. It might be that people are getting used to the situation, and are finding ways to cope and adapt.”

“We also wanted to gauge how much working in our industry has changed – how flexible and nimble we are as an industry.”

“We see this survey as a collective piece of knowledge by and for the entire interior design community,” Dr. Chung said. “We’re not just sharing their responses; we’re sharing what they think is needed. And then we can relate that back to the industry. It is intended to get the conversation going, and to give people who are in practice the most accurate tools and information.”

The participation in the first survey was through the roof – 1300 respondents within two days – with the second survey experiencing a drop-off in participation. The survey is open every 2nd and 4th Tuesdays and Wednesday – available to the public via an open link. ASID has been sending the survey link to people through its regular channels, including social media (Instagram: @asid_hq), and has also been sending it to its industry partners for their own distribution.

The survey takes less than five minutes to complete, once every two weeks. The newest survey results will be available this week, and the next open time to participate in the survey is May 12-13 – we encourage our readers to do so.

Below is a selection of the most recent ASID COVID-19 Pulse survey results (April 14, 2020). Head to the ASID website for the full results.

ASID COVID-19 Pulse Survey participants were asked: “What is your current level of concern related to the impact of COVID-19 on your professional life?” Survey images: courtesy of ASID

What are your top 3 concerns with respect to COVID-19?

Designer Concerns (Top 3)

>Business development: 67% (Mar. 31 survey: 59%)

>Client engagement: 41% (Mar. 31 survey: 36%)

>Business operations: 31% (Mar. 31 survey: 27%)

Manufacturer/Retailer Concerns (Top 3)

  1. Business development: 72% (Mar. 31 survey: 56%)
  2. Client/Industry engagement: 50% (Mar. 31 survey: 36%)
  3. Business operations: 44% (Mar. 31 survey: 49%)

“Among designers, concerns heightened for business development (including inquiries and leads for new projects; 8% increase), client engagement 5% increase), and business operations (e.g., financials, payroll, invoice payment, etc.; 4% increase). Contracts (e.g., change in contracts, loss of contracts, etc.) and employment (retention) saw a slight decrease, 8% and 5% respectively, among designers’ top concerns.”

ASID COVID-19 Pulse Survey participants were asked: “Generally, how have your existing projects been impacted by COVID-19?”

“Designers oftentimes work on multiple projects at once, and each project may have been impacted differently from COVID-19; however, we asked designers to choose one that best described the overall status of projects. Most projects were put on hold or in progress, with 1-2% indicating this status to be unrelated to a shutdown. Within the 6% that had no current projects at the moment, there was a relatively even spread among cancellations, no current projects, and those furloughed/unemployed.”

“Manufacturers and retailers saw impact in their business operations: more than half mentioned limiting services (e.g., showrooms open only by appointment, stores available for pick-up only, etc.) and 19% have online services only.”

ASID COVID-19 Pulse Survey participants were asked: “Compared to two weeks ago (late March), how has work changed for you?”

“Changes in work continue, but to a lesser degree. Significant changes in work are now only reported by about a quarter (compared to about a half from two weeks ago) and another quarter indicate no impact. The overall average dropped to 3.09 from 4.09 two weeks ago.”

“If COVID-19 were to end today (mid-April), the estimated recovery time to return back to pre-COVID business performance slightly changed from two weeks ago (late-March), seeing a decline in numbers projecting less than a month (6% decrease) and slight shifts in longer recovery periods. The majority still sees hope in recovering within one to three months when assessing the current situation.”

We also spoke to a few of our trusted friends working in the design profession. Design firms in practice are acting swiftly to adapt to the new working landscape.

ASID COVID-19 Pulse Survey participants were asked: “If COVID-19 were to end today, how long would you estimate it would take for your company to get back to business performance of February 2020 (prior to widespread COVID-19 impact)?”

Abby L. Scott, Architectural Studio Leader, Associate, Senior Interior Designer at HDR in Omaha, Nebraska, told us about HDR’s internal collaborating experiences, working with design software solely via laptops, and the state of current projects.

“Revit runs a little slower if a model is huge or if we’re working in 3D, but that is always an issue when you are mobile. Meetings haven’t slowed down, and we have been doing Webex, Zoom, HangOut, and GoTo with clients for many years, so it wasn’t too difficult for us. HDR is unique in that we work-share often, so we are used to ‘dating long distance’ with clients and coworkers. We use Webex and Microsoft Teams, which is great because we can have chats and set up different groups to keep things moving smoothly and help eliminate excessive emails. Our CEO has been sending video messages with updates weekly, and we have a site on our intranet dedicated to this. Information is added all the time and gives employees the knowledge they need while navigating these new unknowns.”

“We haven’t seen many true “cancellations”, but our clients are being extremely thoughtful on timing. Examples: pushing start dates, ground breakings, or changing focus on their list of projects is being re-shuffled. We are truly a resource for many clients right now with planning, where to pivot, and how to execute. Having legacy clients we have deep knowledge of their buildings and can assist quickly. Contractors ability to get material is a challenge right now, phasing of projects, FFE, many things are factory dependent and international freight is affected.”

“Each client is approaching meetings differently. Construction punch lists are top of mind for safety and groups, and client meetings are primarily video conference. I would note that our healthcare clients are working diligently to open spaces faster and change function of spaces, and we have been assisting in those efforts with our robust knowledge.”

Susan Chang, Founding Partner of Shimoda Design Group in Los Angeles, added her firm’s experiences.

“Our clients have put projects on pause indefinitely,” Ms. Chang said. “Time will tell when the trigger is pulled to fully cancel. The projects in construction have pushed three-to-six weeks in schedule, which means the GCs are anxious to complete the work and receive final payments; the tenants and landlord are in limbo about actual occupancy and start of business dates.”

April Coover, Associate Vice President at CallisonRTKL, gave us a peek at her firm’s experiences in various markets and geographic regions.

“This is certainly an unprecedented time where impacts have varied across practices – the retail sector has taken pause to reassess their market. We anticipate a cautious return for the retail sector, with considerations for what the new retail experience will be.

China has seen a surge as their return to office has been underway. We have seen some clients take this as an opportunity to move ahead or expedite projects that may have been phased and others have delayed project starts.

In our workplace practice, we have been focused on the navigation of the returning to work and helping our clients with those change-management and space decisions.”

 

Ken Wilson, Design Principal at Perkins & Will in Washington, D.C., shed light on the variety of reasons some clients are postponing projects.

“Sometimes, for our association and non-profit clients, it is the optics of spending money during a period of economic uncertainty,” Wilson said. “Others are concerned about how long it might take to get back to business as usual. And some are concerned about how the pandemic is affecting the permit review process and construction scheduling. We also have clients that haven’t missed a beat.”

New business is also moving forward, Wilson noted.

“Business development is happening remotely and on schedule. We are having our regular in-house meetings as well as new project interviews via video conference.”

Photo: courtesy of BIFMA

BIFMA has its own COVID-19 Resources site, www.bifmacovid19.org. In addition to posting COVID news relevant to its BIFMA members, it also provided a way for its members to participate in the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) survey for businesses to identify specific ways they can help provide COVID-19 relief support.

The other cool touchpoint BIFMA has created is a webpage that gathers all of the thought leadership its group of BIFMA 360º speakers have provided since the pandemic took hold. If you’ve attended BIFMA 360º Leadership Conferences in the past, this is a great way to keep in-the-know on speakers past.

Here at officeinsight, we’re closely following the impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on our community of interior designers, architects, and product designers and manufacturers. We’re listening and reporting diligently, and we hope to be of assistance to our readers during this time. Please drop us a note anytime with a hello, a suggestion, or requests for COVID-19-related coverage.