Craving freedom is a start, creating flexibility is the aim
Following on from our Oasis founder’s post, this article expands on the importance of introducing flexibility and freedom to the workplace as part of a new ecology of work.
The Digital Nomad introduced a new way of working that has taken off in the last decade, characterised predominantly by travel and remote work. Whilst this lifestyle isn’t for everyone, the attitudes, and behaviours that define this profile are being widely adopted by knowledge-based workers today. Freedom and flexibility remain highly desired but are evidently lacking from the traditional workplace. While employees have begun to take control of their work locations, largely enforced by the implications of Covid-19, there is still a disconnect between the shift happening on their side of the workforce and the companies that are employing them.
Work attitudes were changing and changing fast as fatigue began to set in for the traditional workplace. Enter: coworking.
Between 2006 and 2015, it was recorded that the number of coworking spaces and available seats has doubled each year. (via innovation is everywhere)
It offered an alternative for people worldwide looking for an alternative workplace, from full-time to freelance and everyone in between. But the model is still the same. Although there was an increased focus on the community aspect, often boasting events and social breakout spaces as part of the package, it was no more than a repackaging of the same offices that had predated them. The same offices, in the same city centres, where minor annoyances become macro ones in a space where people are expected to spend most of their time but have no direct control over their surroundings = all offices ever. Coworking corporations still champion city centres as their locations of choice, which now feels completely archaic given that public transport has recently become one of the biggest threats to public health. It hasn’t given enough of a solution to an ever-growing problem, it barely gave office real estate a makeover. And it certainly never provided the flexibility that Digital Nomads decided to create themselves. While freelancers and the self-employed have taken freedom and flexibility into their own hands, up until now there’s been no workspace that provided an offering with the kind of variety that meets their needs. A subscription service that gives them a breadth of options in and out of the city would tap into the way they already interact with products and services.
To move forward successfully the workplace needs to offer a hybrid model that puts the needs of workers first, along with careful consideration of what’s happening on a more macro, social scale. Right now because of Covid-19 people have been required to work from home. While at the same time, we’re seeing numerous spaces and venues left empty. From restaurants to hotels, it’s an indication of our struggling hospitality industry. Lobbies are vacant, music venues are silent and galleries stand empty. There are countless more spaces built to accommodate conferences, weddings, and parties — all mass gatherings which are forbidden for the foreseeable future. But what if they could be reconfigured to offer workspaces when needed?
What should be at the forefront of any company’s mind when it comes to optimising their workforce — for lack of a more savoury phrase — is a thorough understanding that different people work well in different locations. Because that’s what they are — people. Not a commodity to be optimised. Instead, provide the kind of freedom that allows people to define their work environment based on the type of work in front of them. We see two key work-related needs that form the basis of this: reconnect and refocus. Offer flexibility that helps encourage these and in turn, there will be an improvement of both quality of life and quality of work, because the two are symbiotic. And flexibility doesn’t necessarily have to mean constantly changing things up, it means changing things when there’s a want and a need to. It means giving independence and autonomy to your workforce with the understanding that the choices they make will contribute to their happiness, and so too their productivity. Consider the Oasis ecology of work, a new framework for modern work whereby people, locations, and environment are blended in harmony in order to get the most out of all three.
Payal Kadakia reinvented exercise when she introduced ClassPass to the fitness market in 2011. She tapped into a desire for something that traditional gym subscriptions could never offer: variety. Enabling users to attend different classes at different studios all over the city for a monthly fee. A model not dissimilar to that of AirBnB. So while the sports and travel sectors have been accounted for, surely it’s about time the workplace was given the same treatment?
While ClassPass offers an alternative to disenfranchised exercisers, at Oasis, we aim to create a solution for two shifts we’re seeing rapidly develop in front of us: for employees and for those with under utilised venues. Because turning any real estate into office space brings a new revenue stream to the proprietors — many of whom are severely struggling and even facing closure. But to call them office spaces doesn’t do them justice. Many of us have spent the last three months working from home and while far from ideal, it’s given people a chance to reassess what it is they actually need in an office space. And that’s different for almost everyone. How can we expect everybody to achieve the same levels of creative and professional efficiency in one space that’s been designed for the masses, not the individual’s needs? Perhaps some of us crave views of the green outdoors to stoke our imagination; or others need a bustling workspace they can feed off of; while some prefer a day of back-to-back meetings before retiring to solitude for the rest of the week. Why are people not already being offered all of the above?
For us at Oasis, we ardently believe every space can be a work space. It’s time to move away from the current binary choice that’s on offer and instead enable a flexible scheme where people and teams can meet and work together: it’s an entirely new ecology of work.
We’re not reinventing the office, we’re bringing a whole new perspective to it. Real estate is not our core offering, we want to unlock productivity and employee satisfaction while at the same time dual-purposing existing underused spaces. We want to help open the door to a whole new set of locations outside the office, your home, or any co-working space.
The tourist industry’s been hard hit with travel restrictions that have been put into place due to Covid-19, so what’s become of all those hospitality venues that have since been forced to close? What about the hotels that once accommodated holiday goers, with huge, open lobbies?
The cafes that remain entirely empty? There are people living locally, now working from home instead of commuting into the city while these spaces stand unoccupied. It seems there are two problems here, and one clear solution.
Working from home has been demystified as the primary alternative to a traditional office space. We need to adopt a ‘work from anywhere’ approach, where any space can be dual-purposed into work space. Hyper-local spaces in particular allow people to experience true community on a level beyond that of contrived coworking events. Instead of burning hours of their day commuting into city centres, employees could have the option of utilising underused spaces in their immediate locality. Treat your employees like the individuals they are and they shall flourish. Because if they don’t find it with you, they’ll go find it elsewhere.
