What’s the point of your office?

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was a net positive for Darren Coleman’s practice. Coleman, the Founder of Portage Cross-Border Wealth Management, found that as the world moved onto Zoom, he was reaching clients in situations and locations that he’d never found before. Clients sought him out, too, as new restrictions and border rules led them to discover that they needed cross-border services. Coleman’s practice grew while his downtown Toronto office sat empty, gathering dust.

Six years later and while much has changed, the client preference for virtual meetings has held. The convenience of a Zoom call now outweighs the depth of connection that might come from an in-person meeting. While he now holds most of his meetings online, Coleman has moved his practice back into a physical office, seeing value in what one shared space can bring to his team. For Coleman, and many advisors like him, the goal of an office is different now.

“The shift online really changed the format and the style in which we engage with people, which for us was fantastic because now clients can be anywhere in the world now, and it doesn’t change our dynamics. What we now have to be more mindful of is how we make sure that we can still have an emotional connection,” Coleman says. “One thing that’s happened is when we do have a meeting with a client in person, it’s like reconnecting with an old friend. We’ve realized that that’s actually pretty cool when we get to meet in person. I think the shift online was really good for us, but I think we’ve been thoughtful about how we use our office well.”

Building an office for the virtual world

Coleman says that his team’s return to office was more about internal operations than impressing clients. He trialled a return to office and found that the spark of spontaneous collaboration came back. He decided the practice would return to a new office full time.

Finding that new office meant prioritizing a different kind of physical space. The office Coleman’s team settled on was full of spaces that could be closed off for client zoom calls and opened up again for shared collaboration. It had a lounge space for more casual moments and a clean, simple aesthetic that spoke more to function than a desire to show off.

“When we built the office space, we designed it to be very effective for our use, nice for clients to see, but we did not make it an ode to my ego,” Coleman says. “We didn’t just flex on designers and furniture, because I think clients now will think it’s a bit ridiculous, it’s a bit gaudy. They’ll ask, ‘where are my fees going?’”

Building a new office was an exercise in deciding where to allocate capital. Coleman said that certain areas were worth investing in. Team members got high-quality webcams, microphones, adjustable standing desks, and comfortable office chairs. The office boardroom was equipped for the occasional in-person client meeting and for higher frequency zoom calls. Where Coleman didn’t spend money was on the ‘frills’ of expensive art, extraneous sitting rooms, and spaces that didn’t have an obvious and clearly understood function.

Location, serendipity, and intention

Coleman also moved his office from downtown Toronto to the western GTA suburb of Oakville. Most of his team lives in Toronto’s western suburbs and without a need for clients to come into the office everyday, a central location wasn’t necessary. The office is still close to transit, but Coleman and his team now have far shorter commutes to deal with.

The office also needs outlets for the team to grow. In signing the lease for his Oakville office, Coleman says he ensured that he could add space if needed. A similar philosophy was applied to his practice’s second office in Vancouver, B.C., where his team has had members working virtually since the pandemic. Just as the shift online has allowed advisors to reach clients everywhere, it has allowed practices to establish teams across the country. Coleman’s view, however, is that those teams need an office space to collaborate in.

While moving into an office brought back the spontaneity of team collaboration within his practice, Coleman accepts that something was lost when he moved away from the financial village that is downtown Toronto. Chance run-ins getting a coffee in the path, or on an elevator. Talking with other professionals who work on Bay St., all of that had an intangible value for a practice. In Coleman’s case, having established his practice in that milieux, he still has the network of friends and colleagues that he gained downtown. For other advisors who started their careers just before, during, or after the pandemic Coleman says that the solution may be in more intentional outreach and connection, especially while the experience of the downtown office world returns slowly and fundamentally changed.

Advisors who still have a downtown office, or who don’t have an office at all, may start reflecting on what value a physical space might provide to them. Coleman suggests that they frame those reflection questions around what they’re getting from their firm. A big chunk of the costs that a firm includes in their grid will be office rent and questioning the value of that rent for your practice can help frame this decision in financial terms. At a fundamental level, however, Coleman believes advisors need to ask about what they want their office to provide for them, their clients, and their teams.

“A big piece is determining what kind of experience you want to have as the advisor and what kind of experience you want for your clients,” Coleman says. “As what you need to deliver for clients and where you need to be to do that. If you’re going to take on the cost of having a space, make sure it works for you in all those different ways. Does it work for the way you want to have clients perceive you? Does it work in terms of the way you want to go to work every day?”