(Bloomberg) -- Maybe take a seat. Please.
As Wall Street adjusts floor plans to ensure returning bankers and traders don't sit too closely, it's contending with a bulky leftover: “What do you do with those chairs?” said Darin Buelow, who runs Deloitte Consulting's global location strategy franchise.
The worry is that leaving too many extras around will invite people to plop down next to a colleague, even if it's just for a few minutes, undermining social distancing to prevent the spread of Covid-19. But “it's not like companies have a whole bunch of extra chair storage rooms,” Buelow said in an interview. “Companies are finding they have to fill up conference rooms with chairs just to get them off the floor.”
The idea that banks and asset managers have too many high-end ergonomic chairs -- Herman Miller Inc.'s Aeron, an industry favorite, can cost more than $1,000 -- while legions of employees are trying to upgrade home offices would seem like a classic arbitrage opportunity. But for now, they can expect to see extra chairs stacked in some unexpected places when they return.
Storing chairs is a relatively minor headache compared with conundrums like getting employees up elevators. But the potential for extra furniture is immense. Deloitte said some financial services companies it deals with are considering keeping as much as 35% of their workforce home permanently.
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