Connectivity and changing workspace dynamics
We’re sponsoring season 11 of #Workbold, a podcast dedicated to space-as-a-service (SPaaS). This week’s guest is John Gravett, Managing Director at Cluttons, a strategic property consultancy with a focus on delivering commercial results for its clients.
John also heads up the real estate management team at Cluttons and specialises in providing strategic advice in telecoms strategy, network roll-out and estate management. He’s seeing demand for more flexible space as a strong supplement to the main office workspace across a whole mix of areas, from traditional, to space that’s pre-fitted with Cat A levels throughout, to actual SPaaS.
For corporates leaving legacy leasings, sustainability will be an important consideration in choosing their next workplace. Which means that failing to retrofit buildings will not be an option. John said: “Businesses have to look at good quality stock and investment has to be put into improving the quality. Otherwise looking back with hindsight in five to 10 years’ time there will be massive regret.”
Embedding connectivity is essential for both new and retrofitted buildings, but John believes that it’s not high enough on the agenda for many in the property and building industry. He said: “They look at the main amenities and at building a great building. But they forget about the need to get good connectivity and how they embed it in order to have a very agile workforce and great flexibility in the building. I think there needs to be better education on connectivity and it needs to be championed far more; from local authorities, from central government, but then also the property industry needs to step up on this one.”
Building owners stand to benefit from seamless connectivity. As John said: “To let the building, to get the right occupation rate, it needs to have great connectivity. Employees need to float from one room to the other, from one meeting room to the other, from one hot desk to the other. Everything is just constantly flowing. And if you haven’t got the right connectivity pattern and strategy in place, then they can’t do that. And therefore they’re going to have a disengaged workforce that doesn’t come into the place you want them to come into. Very logical, but actually that strategy and implementation isn’t really embedded in the majority of cases you have.”
These are just some of the points touched on during a wide-ranging discussion on the podcast. You can listen to the whole episode on Apple Podcasts here or other podcast platforms here.
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