Contents


  1. RUNNING IN THE BACKGROUND
  2. KEY MOVEMENTS & COMPANIES
  3. THE DRIVERS/DISRUPTORS
  4. THE FUTURE
  5. WORKPLACE STRATEGY 



1. RUNNING IN THE BACKGROUND

1993

Jay Chiat: “Most businesses are run like elementary school-you go to work, and you only leave your office when you have to go to the bathroom.” This model breeds insularity and fear, and it’s non-productive. So, his plan was ‘to structure things more like a university, rather than like an elementary school.” Chiat office was build by superstar architects to house a superstar creative team. It was colorful, open and sprinkled with avant-garde furniture and even repurpose amusement park sides. Employees did not have to be in the office. They could stay home, travel in search of inspiration, or spend the day at a café. – inspiring right? but this model didn’t work. Why? Employees rebelled against the lack of privacy, structure and dedicated space.

2004

Google created the Googleplex, by CWa. The vision was “to merge the idea of workplace with the experiences found in an educational environment”. The Googleplex became a symbol of the new economy in the way it was designed toa attract, empower, and even win over the world’s best and brightest knowledge workers. Except inspiring thousands of other companies to fill their HQ with bouncy balls, ping pong tables and open-plan workplaces, this project also popularised the idea of the office as a community of individuals who are “colliding” with one another to create innovative products and services.

2010

WeWork opened its first location in Lower Manhattan. WeWork was among the first to put community and collision at the heart of its value proposition. Sharing an office was reframed as a lifestyle choice. The presence of other people, the lack of privacy, and the distractions were not lamented; they were celebrated. The office was no longer corporate; it was personal.

Key takeaway:

Quote for Chiat: Jeff Bezos, once said: “inventing and pioneering requires a willingness to be misunderstood for long periods of time”. WeWork could not have existed before iPhone. Chiat’s personal office revolution could not have existed before the culmination of Steve Jobs’s personal computer revolution.


2. KEY MOVEMENTS & COMPANIES

DeskDog by BrewDog 
BrewDog runs a program called DeskDog that allow customers to spend their workday in a pub

WePark 
A movement in San Francisco to set up shared workstations in empty parking spots, along city streets

Breather  
Customers can book a space for hours, weeks, or months.

SELINA 
Operate hospitality projects in Southern Asia and Latin America that include coworking spaces, cheap accommodation and shared activities that foster a sense of community.

Hospitality sector – companies which add coworking spaces:

CitizenM
Marriott Moxy Hotel
DoubleTree Hilton (Pivot62 in Colorado) Wyndham Hotel (NEST in Dubai)
The Eaton, Hong Kong
Ace Hotel

Key takeaway:

Many of the above experiments will fail or have already failed but demand for more flexible, more diverse, and more meaningful work environment will continue to grow. Office can be everywhere.


3. THE DRIVERS/DISRUPTORS

Technology:
Is not only making it harder the growth and stability of office tenants. It also makes it harder to predict how much space tenants will need. Automation pushes human to focus on tasks that only humans can perform. At the office, that means a net growth in work that requires interaction with other human, abstract reasoning, critical thinking, deep expertise, and creativity (projections by McKinsey & Company and Deloitte).

Flexible and Remote Work:
For a growing number of employees, flexibility is not just a perk, it’s necessary. An analysis by Thinknum Media found that the number of remote job listings at 763 of the largest U.S. employers have more than doubled between Q1 2018 and Q1 2019.

Key takeaway:

Technology and Flexible work policies is not new to anyone. In the light of the pandemic those two just became more “visible” to everyone. What we were expecting for the future of office in the next 5 years or so, it became true in a short period with covid-19. Let’s enjoy the future that came faster than expected.


4. THE FUTURE

The truths:

  • Technology is changing the way office space is used

  • Work itself changes. Becomes more conceptual, less structures

  • Work environment is weaponized in the war for talent

  • What changed with the pandemic is the employers’ trust to their employees

  • The future office will be as we were visioning it but it will happened faster than we were expecting because of the pandemic

  • Productivity can occur anywhere and yes during locked down team collaboration reached new heights (insights from: Cushman & Wakefield survey with 2.5 million data points, 50,000 respondents)


The Future:


  1. Nothing is predictable – space demands are less predictable and in the same time more demanding than ever.

  2. Office market will become increasingly segmented with different offerings – thrive to capture users’ demands for personalized services

  3. Large parts of the office will resemble the hotel industry

  4. Space uses will become more combined following the trend for efficient use of space (Airbnb’s example, temporary usage of space - apartments/rooms - that would otherwise be empty)


The Future Office:


An office building CANNOT accommodate all the upcoming demands.

  • Office is not a single location, is a network of spaces and services – decentralisation. Meaning improved allocation of resources to their most productive uses. The future office will be an ecosystem of different locations offering different services and different experiences. Example: Spotify’s HQ are in Stockholm, but it has large offices in NY and London, and smaller offices in dozens of other cities. These offices are not “regional headquarters” or “local branches”. They are a base for employees that contribute to the development of key products and services, as well as for some of the company’s key executives - decentralisation.

  • Companies don’t want space, they want a productivity solution to help them attract and retain the best individuals. How they empower those individuals to produce their best work? The solution include physical spaces, various services, and digital tools that enable companies and individuals to make the best use of their time. Is not just about working is about employees having healthy and meaningful lives.



5. WORKPLACE STRATEGY 

The focus needs to be in providing guidance for:
    1. typology of the new office ecosystem,
    2. empowering clients’ culture in the virtual world and
    3. providing digital tools to clients with global presence to support their internal FM and Design teams.

The purpose: Understand space demand in real-time and historical data.


Following the Drivers/Disruptors:
Technology: Today, technology is changing the way office space is used and redefines how, where, and even why people go about their work. We need to explore digital tools and integrate them in the design processes. We embrace change through human-centered design and we need to keep monitoring human behaviours and needs. Our goal is to support our clients to adapt fast to the upcoming constant changes and provide meaningful work experience for their employees.

Flexible and Remote Work: All this freedom and flexibility does not mean management is finally dead. Quite the opposite is true: companies are relying on sophisticated tools to manage their flexible offices and measure the performance of their mobile and transient workforce. We need to help our clients define and develop the tools they need in order to keep up with the productivity.

Workplace strategy should focus on:

Defining Typology:


Being in a constantly changing environment; what landlords and tenants will need is a monitoring service of their Property portfolios, of their users needs and of the market trends. The future office will be a variety of different work experiences and it will consists of multiple locations. Employees will work from home or from local hubs or the core office; maybe they will have a meeting in an event space (booked via Breather), or have informal meetings in a coffee place or do a mix of all. Defining the space that these different workstyles will need will be a challenge. We need an ecosystemic approach to this challenge.

Defining Culture:


What came up during locked down is that companies are struggling to pass their culture when people are not around the office. Example: Recruitments that happened during the locked down. Many companies will struggle in the future to create mechanisms to communicate their values virtually. Behaviours will need to adjust and protocols for working with others remotely. Leaders need to learn how to manage, motivate and keep remote workers connected to company culture.


Developing Digital Tools:


Technology will play the main role in the future of office. Systems should be more intelligent. Processes quicker. Landlords and tenants will need tools to understand how their asset are performing. Landlords will need to move from B2B to B2C, delivering experiences to end users. Tenants will also need digital tools to help employees access value-added services, make new connections and find inspiration.