Where is the workplace moving to?
Photo from Republikken co-working space in Copenhagen taken by the author
Traditional
offices and work from 9 to 5 are decreasing. That’s a fact and we all know that.
Now, when we can easily measure space utilization rates, we see that desks are
used less than 50% of the time (see e.g. Oseland et al. 2013, Knoll, 2011, or http://www.workplace-manager.com/).
Some companies try to reduce their costs by giving up some of the office space
and promoting flexible work style and remote work, for example, from home (see
e.g. Smart Flexibility book by Lake, A. 2013). Others try to increase the
attractiveness of their office space by heavily investing into modern design.
However, bright colors and cool furniture often doesn’t do the trick. So what
is going on? Where are we moving?
Yesterday I
bumped into an interesting dissertation from UK. In her dissertation, Dr. Canonico explores the influence of homeworking
to employees and organizations and differences between three age groups. She
claims that when home-working practice becomes a commodity rather than a
privilege the effect of increased productivity disappears. Meaning, that now,
when only some employees are given the privilege of homeworking, they feel
obliged or thankful, thus, put more effort to what they are doing and work
harder for this given opportunity. However, when flexibility becomes an expected
entitlement, they do not feel the same way and start requiring more, for
example, covering stationery costs and similar. So the common proposition that
people are more productive at home is disproved. I believe that this is a good
indication that offices will not become obsolete and we still need a place
where we go to work.
But then again,
people don’t go to offices as much. We can witness a rise of co-working spaces.
What is the secret there? I found a new book about co-working spaces (The
Coworking Handbook by Suarez, R. 2016) which I, unfortunately, have not read myself
yet but looked at the review of it written by P. Carder. And I must say, after having multiple
interviews with both co-working space managers and people working at co-working
spaces, as well as trying as many different co-working spaces myself, I totally
agree with the reviewer. The main difference that separates successful
co-working space from non-successful one is the community it creates. If
there’s no community – it doesn’t matter how cool your place is from the design
perspective, how well located it is – people might come once but probably they
won’t return. And, according to the author, co-working space is an added value
offer for a traditional real estate. It seems that often, co-working companies
can rent physical space from real estate owners and “sell” it (sublet) for the
higher cost. So if people are willing to pay, they see the value in it. Of
course, we cannot exclude the role of the space itself – it needs to be
functional and supporting the needs of people working there but in general
people tend to complain about it less than in a traditional office environment.
So what does
this mean to big corporate organisations? How can they create this added value
of real estate? If people don’t come to the office, they want flexibility, and
they are rather willing to work in co-working spaces, does it mean that
companies have to become some kind of hubs with a community manager to attract
their employees to come there? Is that a role of real estate manager, HR
manager, or a totally new role that corporations still overlook? Should they do
it or is it too much? Should they rather change their employment agreements
with employees and allow a total flexibility by covering costs of using other
spaces than their own office? Would that mean more financial flexibility for
company moving from capital costs to operational cost?
I have much more
questions than answers when looking at this. And we at PATI work hard try to answer
at least to some of those and would be happy to have a discussion if that
is interesting for you as well!
All the best,
Vitalija
Vitalija