Outdoor retailer REI sells its newly completed – and currently unused – 8-acre Corporate Campus in Bellevue, Washington, instead shifting to a “less centralized approach to its Seattle headquarters headquarters.”
The future “headquarters” will instead consist of multiple satellite campuses in the Seattle area, the retailer said, instead of one central location. External work will be the “normalized model” for headquarters staff.
The new strategy, Artz argued, has advantages. External work offers greater flexibility for employees to live outside the Puget Sound region, he said, which would shrink the retailer’s carbon footprint.
“This will have a direct, positive impact on our ability to attract and retain a diverse and highly skilled workforce as we continue to navigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and continue to navigate,” Artz said.
The staff of REI’s headquarters have all been working remotely since early March, the statement said. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the company had plans to relocate to the new campus this summer.
Meanwhile, Google, Amazon corporate, Warner Music Group, and more have said they will not return to office until 2021 – at the earliest.
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