While many companies including REI and Expedia are building new headquarters themed to their cultures and designed with amenities to lure employees, others such as insurer Allstate are taking a lower key tack.
“When Allstate sold its sprawling Northbrook campus in October, long an iconic corporate landmark bordering the Tri-State Tollway, the insurance giant didn’t set off for a trendy West Loop address, the Sun Belt or more exotic destination,” reports the Chicago Tribune. “Instead, Allstate packed up its cubicles, stowed its massive signs and moved into an anonymous office building it still owned across the street, downsizing its global headquarters — at least temporarily — to a modest, unmarked space on the first and second floors.”
“I think the concept of a headquarters is changing,” Allstate CEO Tom Wilson told the Tribune.
Allstate has given its 5,400 Chicago-area employees the ongoing choice of where they want to work, and 83% are choosing to work remotely, the company said. That turned its massive suburban campus into a ghost town, prompting the decision to sell it, Wilson said.
“When the time is right, we’ll figure out what we want a headquarters to look like and where it should be,” Wilson said. “But right now, we’re operating just fine with it being a relatively small office.”