The Covid-19 pandemic has abruptly challenged a decade of corporate real estate and workplace design decisions by calling into question the purpose of large centralized office locations. With many organizations maintaining work-from-home policies for the foreseeable future, we argue that now is an optimal time to plan for a post-pandemic workplace strategy by revisiting the conventional wisdom behind the centralized office. A more distributed model throughout cities and geographic regions, we believe, would better support employee performance and organizational resiliency while contributing to the improvement of the urban landscape and local communities.
Reimagining the Urban Office
A new kind of workspace could help employees thrive.
August 14, 2020
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Summary.
Researchers argue that distributing workers throughout the city or region into smaller workspaces and giving them the chance to collaborate more with colleagues who live in close proximity could create several benefits. From a resilience perspective, this model offers more options from where people can work in the event of disruptions like a natural disaster, a power outage, compromised infrastructure, or a major traffic disruption. From a business development perspective, it can bring organizations closer to their clients or customers — even offering options for co-locating with them. It can also bring businesses closer to job seekers or other talent pools. In terms of office design, they believe coworking-like options are an exemplary model for what a more distributed network of workspaces could look like.