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Media companies offer incentives to get staff back in the office

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss trends in the media industry as more workers return to offices.

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Welcome back, everyone. The biggest names in media and entertainment descending on Sun Valley, Idaho for the annual Allen & Company Conference. Now it usually leads to lots of deals in the space, but the concerns about the health of the economy are looming over the confab and raising the possibility that deals might be limited.

Well, one other issue affecting the entertainment industry-- getting workers back into the office. Now media companies often have a reputation of work hard, play hard, but one expert says the key to getting people back into the office-- more fun-- make it more fun and exciting than being at home. Jared, what would have to make it more fun and exciting for you to want to be in the office all day?

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JARED BLIKRE: Oh, they're doing such a great job. We get free Shake Shack on Fridays. I don't know if you know this. I hope this trend continues. It is nice being back in the office with a limited number of people. And hey, we are a media and entertainment company at our core. And there aren't a lot of other people in the office besides those who contribute to the studio teams. But they're slowly trickling in, and we're happy to have them. And the offices are nice.

And I understand the push-- the kind of push towards a more subjective, a more intensive experience with respect to the office to cater towards the younger generations. But it costs a lot of money. And so at this point, do companies want to really make those capital outlays? I don't know, Rachelle.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: I mean, I was-- I would get a tear in my eye when you talked about Shake Shack. Obviously, I'm not there, so I don't get to participate in it.

JARED BLIKRE: We miss you.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: But that's OK. But I do think it's important to make the space-- you want it to be a place where you want to come. No one wants to get up and feel like they're dragging themselves into the office. So things like lighting, things like having coffee available, the good snacks, these are things that make it good to be at home-- I mean, make it good to be in the office. At home, obviously, it's very hard to divide your work life or your home life. So to have that sort of that relief, that getaway, I do think a lot of offices could do more to make it a more enticing place to be.

JARED BLIKRE: I think so, and I think that's going to be the trend for a while. But companies right now are kind of shell-shocked with the cost. I know a lot of companies, including some of the companies that occupy our building here that are not us-- in other words, that would be Meta, Facebook-- a lot of their floors are simply unused.

I stare out of my apartment building in the financial district. There are entire floors of buildings that are unused right now. So once we work through those multiyear leases and companies rethink their strategies, I think we're going to be able to give it another go here. Rachelle, do you have any other thoughts on this? Because I'm feeling a little bit nostalgic for the old days.