Webinar round up: Profile – The future direction of the office and how to communicate it
On 9 June 2022, Jonathan Fewster, Head of Real Estate at BDB Pitmans was joined by Cathy Griffiths, Commercial Leasing Manager at Landsec, Victoria Goodings Director at workplace consultancy, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Freddie Pritchard-Smith co-founder of Trustek and Dan Silverman, co-founder of Spacemade for a seminar on the future of the workplace.
With the office sector already undergoing an unprecedented period of disruption with the rise of co-working, increasingly ‘footloose’ occupiers and inexorably shortening leases, Profile’s seminar looked at the landscape now that the working from home phenomenon is back in full swing with new tech-enabled working practices proliferating.
Director at JPES Partners, Duncan Lamb, acted as chair, putting various questions to the panel including how office environments should position themselves for the future market and how those in the sector should engage with the new attitudes and behaviours of occupiers post-COVID.
During the session, various topics were covered including:
- sustainability;
- tenant friendly messaging and
- how to improve functionality in the serviced office.
Other takeaways included:
- there appears to be a move away from the traditional fit-out process as mindsets shift towards an emphasis on responsible spaces designed to retain talent. Working spaces now need to be multipurpose, striking a balance and must offer social, productive, collaborative and supportive elements;
- the age of the office is not over despite the advent of remote working: companies need these spaces to build culture, assist younger staff in gaining experience and provide workshops and training;
- although ‘proptech’ can be used to address various ‘pain points’ for occupiers often thought isn’t given to the objective at hand. A procurement gap often sees occupiers given incorrect information; and
- communication is now focused towards more colloquial terms that both landlords and occupiers can understand. While technology is being used to showcase developer intentions technical terminology has been dropped.
For more information about Profile and their upcoming events visit https://www.profile-network.com/