Originally published in the Nashville Business Journal – May 28, 2020.
Earlier this year, finding more office space was one of Shervin Eftekhari’s biggest tasks — until Covid-19 eliminated that need.
As president of Zander Insurance, Eftekhari oversees 208 employees, who jockey for 120 parking spaces or limited additional spots in an overflow lot across Charlotte Pike. He thinks the growing company’s headcount could hit 300 in a couple of years.
Eftekhari had been seeking an additional 5,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet of office space, but he isn’t anymore. He will have more of his employees work from home on a regular basis.
As raw numbers, a lease of that size doesn’t usually register with many in Nashville’s real estate industry. But real estate pros are likely to make note of why Eftekhari halted his office search, as an indicator of the attitude more executives could adopt as Covid-19 prompts companies to rethink how they function.
“We’d always had it in the back of our mind that we could expand work-from-home. This pulled the Band-Aid right off and we were forced to make it happen,” Eftekhari said. “It’s really changed why we think people need to be in the office.”
Company principals bought a 22,000-square-foot building five years ago in West Nashville. The extra space Zander had sought would have been an expansion of 22% to 45% of its footprint.
“We can probably double our workforce and still stay in that building” by having more employees stationed at home, Eftekhari said.
He added: “Our hiring possibilities have just increased dramatically: We can hire pretty much anyone in Tennessee. There’s no reason why we can’t bring someone in for the first two to four weeks, get them trained, and then have them work from home for the most part.”
Eftekhari acknowledges that a company like Zander Insurance is set up for a stronger work-from-home approach, because most of its business happens over the phone or internet.
“We’ve always had, on any day, 20 to 50 people work from home. So it wasn’t foreign to us,” he said. “But we’ve never had, on a grand scale, people working from home.”
That all changed in March, when Zander sent its workers home as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold.
Eftekhari said productivity was his second-biggest worry, after the health of his workforce. He made sure he or a supervisor communicated with an employee at least three or four times a day — via a call, an email, a text message or an instant message.
“We really harped on that message of productivity. Within a week, we actually were as productive as we were in the office. That was a big surprise,” Eftekhari said. “Then we discovered some departments actually became more productive.”
He noticed one group of employees wasn’t as productive.
“After digging in, we realized many people on that team didn’t have a second monitor at home. They have a lot of pages open at once, so that drove down their productivity,” Eftekhari said. “So we have increased our technology costs, but it’s been well worth it.”
Zander has polled its employees about their preferences. More than 90% said they wanted to work remotely at least half of the time — if not every workday, Eftekhari said.
“My guess is that probably 30% to 35% of our workforce will be in the office at any one time going forward,” he said. “There are some people who aren’t as productive, and we want them back in the office. Our managers will have discretion over that.”
One of Eftekhari’s new top concerns is preserving company culture with a workforce that could be mostly remote.
“That first month someone is with us, they really pick up on the company culture. Even if people prefer to work from home, we’d still like to see them in the office. There still need to be touch points,” he said. “Company functions will still happen, we still want people involved and engaged in that. But it’s going to be a mixed bag.”
Eftekhari, for one, has enjoyed a certain perk of working from home.
“I have a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old. Mom’s been teaching them, for the most part. It’s nice to get a hug from them in the middle of the day, ” he said.