What We've Learned: Host Conversations #1 

Throughout the pandemic, essential workers have faced tremendous difficulty and uncertainty while performing their jobs—Host’s hospitality experts are no exception. Host’s workplace experience teams have been at the forefront of service delivery and continue to be the heart of the locations they serve.

We caught up with one of those Host team members to discuss their experience working in this harrowing time, what they’ve learned and how we can all understand their experience a bit better. This week, we’re featuring Ashley Yording, a Chicago-based workplace experience manager. Ashley has been with CBRE since 2013 and joined the Host team in April 2020, just as the COVID crisis was kicking off.

What’s your favorite part of what you do?

"I think the biggest thing is being able to help employees on the client side. I love working with our coordinators to provide clients with assistance or answers to any questions they may have. Also, just talking and getting to know them personally, especially given the difficulty of the pandemic. Most people haven’t been very social or around a lot of people for most of the past year obviously, so I consider it an important part of our job. Our team can provide truly unique experiences for people—events, happy hours, and overall building the workplace community; I’m just excited to be helping people every day."


Has the pandemic experience changed your approach to customer service or hospitality?

"One of my biggest takeaways is that everyone’s comfort levels are across the board; not everyone is as comfortable being in an office setting yet. We’ve largely worked through the pandemic—we reopened July of last year, although we had to shut down again in November, so we’ve had to be extra cautious and understanding that not everyone will feel the same way about the safety of the workspace. I’ve felt comfortable, but that’s because I have detailed knowledge of how thorough our cleaning and safety protocols are. But part of this role is putting yourself in other people’s shoes. Most employees who are just returning aren’t coming every day and, until recently, some hadn’t been here for over a year. It’s going to take some time to adjust to the new world we’re in—things just aren’t going to be the same as they were pre-pandemic, at least for the time being. We want people to know that we’re here to support and assist them through this difficult time, and we’re taking cleaning and other COVID protocols seriously because we want to keep everyone safe and healthy at work. We’ve also conducted surveys with employees to understand how we can better serve them. Overall, everyone’s comfort level is totally different, but that’s okay and understandable."


What’s been the most notable experience of your time at Host?

"Starting a new position during a pandemic was definitely a notable experience. It was huge for my team, the fact that we came to the office during a lot of this—to check the mail, make sure the property was taken care of—I give them a lot of credit for doing that. I know our client was so happy with the team, as well. And that’s what we’re here for. We had no idea when we’d be opening again in full, so we wanted to make sure we were on top of our game.

Reopening the workplace was also quite a challenge. Essentially, everything had been turned off and left for a lengthy amount of time. Freezers defrosted, coffee machines hadn’t been used in months, all food had to be removed from the space and replaced—there’s a lot to consider and tons of work to do in that instance. And then we had to shut down and reopen a second time after all that. I’m so grateful to my CBRE team and our client because they’ve been incredibly helpful as we navigate this."


What have you heard from the client employees you work with?

"Biggest thing was we wanted to hear everyone’s experience. Some employees are new hires, never been in the space, some haven’t been in a year. Lots of variety of experience. We surveyed employees who came into the space to get more information. Our number one questions were ‘how is the space?’ and ‘is it safe?’ We want to know what things are like from an employee perspective. Also excited to ultimately return to having in-office celebrations, happy hours, etc. People just want to get back to normal as much as possible.

It’s been nice to bring back a sense of comfort for those who are in the office. Just having their desk with all their things, their regular routines, their morning coffee the way they like it, a friendly face to greet them. It’s all important."


What does future of the workplace look like in your view?

"We are starting to see more people in space each day; we were at a lower capacity last summer. In particular, people are coming in to collaborate with their teams. They want to be in the same room with the person; people are tired of zoom and face-to-face interactions feel more impactful. For collaboration, it’s just more efficient and easier to understand people. With that said, I don’t know that people will fully return Monday through Friday, eight hours a day. I think most will come in a few times per week and use that time for a specific purpose, like meeting with teams or collaborative work. I imagine people will do a lot of their heads-down work at home. I don’t know if people will use the office exactly like they used to, but I’m interested to see what things look like a year from now."