The growth of Flexible Offices is here to stay

The fiscal year 2020-21 has had varied consequences for the real estate sector. One foremost area which has contributed largely to the real estate economy has been the management of office spaces.

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With the pandemic in place and remote working opportunities gradually being considered as the accepted norm of working, flexibility in terms of b2b perspectives and employee perspectives has captured significant interests from the partakers. This has facilitated the need for more innovative and improvised approaches to managing workspaces.  

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Flexible workspaces

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Keeping in mind the needs of the employees, organizations are now more invested in creating opportunities for flexibility in terms of design, office timings, and customized spaces in accordance with the wishes of the employees.

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This has proven beneficial for organizations to generate confidence in the employees to keep up the productivity and commitment towards work and provide the platform for a gradual return to the offices.

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This has propelled the interest of the businesses to move away from the traditional methods of leasing offices and opt for more newer and innovative methods for leasing.

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According to a report by Cushman and Wakefield, the flexible workspace segment has witnessed rapid expansion over the last 4-5 years. With an operating capacity of more than 400,000 seats across the top 8 cities and at around 30 MSF of stock, it has emerged as an alternate workplace solution over the years. With the increase in demand, there are no reservations that the flexible workspace segment is quickly becoming relevant and profitable in the eyes of the operators.

Hub and Spoke Model

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Measured and analysed by companies as more suitable during the pandemic, the hub and spoke model caters to the idea of decentralizing the concept of one big hub in a major city holding all machinery and management.

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With the work from home model taking precedence and employees moving out of the top-tier cities, companies are now leasing multiple spaces in multiple cities for their operations and for the ease of their employees.

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The model has well thrived in recent times and is estimated to be a major boost for the office segment of the real estate market.

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Intensifying planned partnerships

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The pandemic opened opportunities for businesses to collaborate and become interdependent to function efficiently. The partnerships involving landlord-operator, investor-operator, occupier-operator relations furthered the idea of establishing innovations in the sector for a more productive outlook.  

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Skootr FinSave is offering fit-out as a service that helps organizations to operate in workspaces suiting their identity and culture without having to manage or hold offices. This is a supreme example of how the market is consistently improvising and defining the investor-operator-ownership model and leading the way to remain pandemic resistant.

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Increased flex and core strategies

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A growing trend observed in the occupiers’ minds today indicates the adoption of a core-flex model of leasing office spaces.

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The pandemic has opened up the possibility of adopting the hub and spoke model which is leading organizations to maintain a core office at the desired place and open up flexible office spaces elsewhere to match the requirements of the employees for better coordination and functioning.

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This has widened the scope for more partnerships taking place amongst the stakeholders with the model expected to remain central for some time driven by the pandemic.

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Outlook

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To conclude, technology and the pandemic have proven to have brought both limitations and innovations to the flexible workspace setup.

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With employees finding it suitable to work from home, the growing concern has been recorded to be the missing engagement and interaction between companies and their employees which has had a long history of enhancing productivity and growth.

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However, keeping up with the times, businesses have deliberated strategic and innovative plans to restructure the way office spaces functioned thus keeping the workspace management model flexible and progressive.