Landlords were terrified. The remote-work trend during the dark days of the pandemic looked like office buildings were a relic of a past antiquated age. In a time of social distancing, corralling thousands of human beings into close contact in steel enclosures for eight to 10 hours under fluorescent lights and forced air seemed barbaric.

In Europe, banking giants HSBC, Lloyds Bank and Standard Chartered announced plans to jettison their costly, well-appointed posh headquarters or leave when their leases expired. Meanwhile, progressive tech companies, such as Twitter, Square and Spotify, told their staff that they could work remotely forever.

Over the last several months, the trend started moving toward a flexible hybrid model. This entails having people come into the office two or three days a week and working from home the rest of the time. There would also be a sizable percentage of employees solely working remotely, as studies show one in four workers would quit if forced to go back.

The corporate consensus is that most—but not all—workers will return to the office. For instance, JPMorgan strongly urged bankers to return to work, but allowed about 10% to stay remote. Ten percent is about 25,000 people. It’s the same with Google. The company has built and repurposed office space to make it an amazing place for Gen-Zers with all of the amenities young people would want. Even with the coolness factor, there will be thousands of people who will continue to work remotely.

Co-working companies are betting that work-from-homers won’t think of it as a total “Remotopia.” People like myself have grown weary of being at home. You have to take care of two dogs, two cats, a spouse, kids and a relative brought in during the pandemic, while trying to actually work. There’s the constant interruptions of lawn mowers, leaf blowers, neighbors’ kids playing basketball and construction on the house across the street.

For many people who live in the suburbs, there’s no burning desire to get back on a bus or train and waste two to three hours going back and forth in a dreadful, soul-sucking commute to the city each and every day. They don’t want to be stuck at home every day either—fixing spotty internet connections without any IT help, ensuring the lighting is right for yet another Zoom call and going outside to make a phone call because you can’t get a good reception in the house for some unknown reason.

I’ve spoken with a number of CEOs of both well-established and startup real estate companies that have plans for the future of work. Mark Dixon is the businessman who came up with the co-working concept over 30 years ago, and became a billionaire in the process. There are now a number of smart, scrappy startup entrepreneurs that seek to disrupt the staid office real estate market.

The solution that both Dixon and the newcomers are coming up with is to have a third choice—a nice place to go to a couple of times a week to get out of the house and break up the monotony.

Here’s What These Companies Are Doing To Shake Things Up

IWG

IWG, which owns the Regus brand and other co-working divisions,  helps “millions of people in 3,125 locations in over 1,000 cities across more than 110 countries.” Its spaces offer a community atmosphere. Instead of having to wrestle with erratic internet connections at home, IWG provides professionals that help to manage your technology, phone lines, desks, chairs and lighting, so that you can just focus on the work.

Dixon is bullish and excited about the future. He maintains that there are millions of people around the world that want a place to go without schlepping into a city, losing three hours a day and coming home exhausted and stressed out.

Having fewer commuters helps the environment by cutting down carbon emissions, Dixon points out. Co-working spaces are convenient. They allow corporations to lose the large and expensive real estate burden. IWG would house their staff when they want to get out of their apartments and homes, even if it’s for one day a week.

Dixon has seen the migration of people out of London and New York during the dark days of the Covid-19 outbreak. The work-from-anywhere trend has allowed folks to go to all sorts of interesting places across the globe. The co-working offices will follow their trail and offer a nearby place for them to do their work. Some of these spaces will be in mixed-use locations in suburban and rural markets.

According to Dixon, “In the wake of the global pandemic, the world of work has undergone a wholesale evolution,” He added “While employees have wanted the ability to work remotely in recent years, many still want to return to an office environment at least part of the time.” Dixon talked about his division, “We have been at the forefront of global workspace trends and are looking forward to introducing our latest innovation with the launch of Spaces Napa, the first of several locations that will help utilize existing retail space, while empowering a new generation of hybrid workers.”

The concept is designed to have universal appeal and resonate with a wide array of workers, entrepreneurs and independent contractors, who may visit a central headquarters for meetings and events, while working some of the time from home or at a third type of causal office location.

Daybase

Daybase was founded by two former WeWork executives. Their idea is to put a new spin on the co-working concept. The startup will offer workers an alternative to going into a company’s home office or working remotely at home.

The co-working company plans to lease around 5,000 square feet of office space in retail shopping centers, malls and downtown areas of suburban neighborhoods. The goal is to have co-working spaces close to where the people live. Instead of trekking into a major city or laboring alone at home, they’ll have another choice. It could be only a walk or short drive to the nearest DayBase location. The spaces offer furnished offices with a local feel and “concierge” support for your technology, software and operational needs.

Daybase CEO Joel Steinhaus said, “The pandemic completely upended work routines and, with that, the expectations of the workforce.” Steinhaus continued, “For companies, being competitive for talent in a post-pandemic world boils down to one clear takeaway: there is no full return to normal. Normal has changed. The work environment and work schedule companies offer is the next frontier upon which the coming talent war will be waged.” As the job market heats up, businesses need to accommodate workers to attract and retain them. Offering choices on where they can work is an attractive benefit.

The chief executive predicts, “Those companies that invest the time now to come up with creative and responsive solutions to the shift in their employees’ expectation of greater autonomy and flexibility are going to have an incredible advantage when it comes to retaining and attracting the top talent in their industry.”

Daybase COO Doug Chambers said, “It’s time for a completely new model—one that creates a seamless hybrid work experience and empowers people to work closer to home in the way that best suits their roles, their skills, their schedules and their lives.”

KettleSpace

KettleSpace, founded in 2016, is a workspace technology company based in New York City that focuses on empowering professionals to thrive in today’s era of location-agnostic work. With its robust software competencies, a network of inspiring local workspaces and expertise in operations and community development, KettleSpace already empowers more than 50,000 users and works in 100-plus spaces, nationwide.

KettleSpace intends to support its customers by offering productive workspaces close to home. The company has a unique model. It partners with restaurants that have private, unused space or are closed entirely during the day, transforming them into a network of collaborative co-working spaces. KettlesSpace views restaurants as middle ground, which also serves as a co-working space.

The company said, “We created KettleOS in response to feedback from 1,000-plus business leaders from various positions within companies (HR, facilities, real estate, finance and C-Suite). Our product provides leadership with dynamic solutions tackling dynamic problems in terms of coordinating people, spaces and time in the hybrid environment. For employees, we provide an intuitive work experience  app that goes layers deeper than simply booking spaces or finding alternative workspaces.”

Daniel Rosenzweig, a cofounder of the company, was a former WeWork real-estate team executive. WeWork experienced lightning-fast growth, but burned through billions of dollars and suffered from questionable management decisions made by former CEO Adam Neumann.

Rosenzweig recognized how fast cash can be spent on renting real estate and refurbishing spaces to accommodate co-working. Whereas restaurants and other types of retail locations don’t require large investments. The small businesses would be happy to have people in their restaurants, especially on off hours, to add an additional income stream.

“We provide the comfort and connectivity of co-working spaces for a fraction of the cost. Our customers enjoy an atmosphere that’s the perfect mix of productive and buzzy. Our goal is to allow them to work and meet where they want, when they want and how they want,” Rosenzweig said.

 

Gable 

Gable launched in mid-2020. “Think of Gable as the Airbnb of co-working,” CEO Liza Mash Levin says. “We have two types of hosts. One is a person that already operates the space for their business. This person has a great setup and Gable helps to maximize the usage of their space, such as in the evenings and on weekends. Another type is a remote worker that stays at home, wants company and wants to leverage their space to get additional income.”

Levin describes the increasing need for a third space—for remote workers and students alike. “A third space isn’t your home, your office or your school, but a place close to home where you can be productive and work throughout the day with your colleagues, classmates or a small group of people.”

The startup offers a novel, disruptive flexible drop-in option at other people’s homes. Gable makes it easy for companies to actively manage a hybrid or distributed workforce by offering a selection of locally vetted, luxurious and flexible locations and the tools to streamline workflow.

Your new unique office can take the form of a desk, couch or living room. The idea is to provide alternatives to the status quo by offering a fresh new change of scenery. This could help people avoid the burnout associated with working in the same office or cubicle day-after-day and the adverse impact of isolation when working alone at home for long periods of time.

Gable seeks to be the first workspace-as-a-service platform. Their technology will empower remote workers to “find safe, inspiring workspaces that help them connect to the broader community of professionals in their neighborhood and do their best work.”

“Most remote workers go to co-working spaces, which are big complexes with the majority in major hubs,” Levin says. “If someone lives in a residential neighborhood, why would they commute? That’s why Gable is focused on residential locations to make sure that people have easier access to co-working.”

Source: Forbes