pratlou
Senior Member
Nedbank has cut the amount of office space it utilises across South Africa and the rest of the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region by more than half since 2016 as it moves to ‘consolidate’ and ‘standardise’ its own buildings.
In all, its corporate real estate floor space has reduced from 381 000m² in 2016 to just 180 000m² at the end of June.
Most corporate staff use ‘hot desks’ in open plan areas, and its shift to a hybrid work-from-home model in 2020 and 2021 helped drive the reduction.
It also has remote working arrangements in place for certain staff across the bank. Only 60% of its staff will be on campus on any given day. This means it has a desk ‘utilisation’ rate of well over 100%.
For comparison, its Sandton head office campus (135 Rivonia Road) has around 42 000m² of commercial office space. This means it has removed total space equal to nearly five of its head office buildings since 2016.
Ironically, Nedbank doesn’t fully utilise its head office space, with a number of commercial listings available for pockets of space – some as large as 2 000m² – across various floors in the building. (Gross rentals are set at between R200 and R220 per square metre).
Nedbank isn’t only reducing office space. It has cut 60 000m² (approximately one third) of branch floor space since 2020. It says it optimises “the shape of our infrastructure largely through Project Imagine (our digitally focused outlets)”.
The decrease in floor space overall needs to be seen in the context of an ‘only’ 9% reduction in the number of employees across the group since 2020 (it now has just under 26 000, which includes nearly 300 ‘new’ staff as part of the acquisition of Eqstra). This means it is using its space far more efficiently than ever.
Nedbank sees additional floor space cuts (“benefits”) alongside other paybacks from data analytics, payment modernisation, and hyper-automation going forward and will update the market on this with its full-year results at the start of 2025.
In all, its corporate real estate floor space has reduced from 381 000m² in 2016 to just 180 000m² at the end of June.
Most corporate staff use ‘hot desks’ in open plan areas, and its shift to a hybrid work-from-home model in 2020 and 2021 helped drive the reduction.
It also has remote working arrangements in place for certain staff across the bank. Only 60% of its staff will be on campus on any given day. This means it has a desk ‘utilisation’ rate of well over 100%.
For comparison, its Sandton head office campus (135 Rivonia Road) has around 42 000m² of commercial office space. This means it has removed total space equal to nearly five of its head office buildings since 2016.
Ironically, Nedbank doesn’t fully utilise its head office space, with a number of commercial listings available for pockets of space – some as large as 2 000m² – across various floors in the building. (Gross rentals are set at between R200 and R220 per square metre).
Nedbank isn’t only reducing office space. It has cut 60 000m² (approximately one third) of branch floor space since 2020. It says it optimises “the shape of our infrastructure largely through Project Imagine (our digitally focused outlets)”.
The decrease in floor space overall needs to be seen in the context of an ‘only’ 9% reduction in the number of employees across the group since 2020 (it now has just under 26 000, which includes nearly 300 ‘new’ staff as part of the acquisition of Eqstra). This means it is using its space far more efficiently than ever.
Nedbank sees additional floor space cuts (“benefits”) alongside other paybacks from data analytics, payment modernisation, and hyper-automation going forward and will update the market on this with its full-year results at the start of 2025.
