Earlier this month, four LiquidSpace team members traveled to rainy Seattle to attend CoreNet Global Summit 2021. The event saw more than 1,000 real estate professionals gather in the Emerald City to reconnect, talk shop, and compare notes on the one topic that’s increasingly preoccupied C-suite circles since the start of the pandemic more than 18 months ago.
The future of work.
Put simply, it’s the dawn of a new era. Hybrid work is here to stay. Organizations of all sizes, all over the world, are now in the business of delivering employee happiness. And the implications for executives and corporate real estate operators are enormous.
What happens now? Let’s begin at the beginning. What is hybrid work? A strategic mix of office-based and remote work options? Yes. But that definition is far too narrow. It misses the bigger picture. Frankly, it misses the point. Hybrid is about more than work. It’s about people. It’s about the intersection of people and place. The hybrid mindset recognizes that the framework of the pre-pandemic work era is insufficient to meet the needs of our new normal. It embraces the fact that, now more than ever, no single office environment can be all things to all people – nor should it be. It rejects bias towards any one workspace over another, or any one set of employee needs over another. It acknowledges that life is short and commutes should be shorter.
“The events of the past two years have brought into focus the urgency of addressing the diversity, productivity, efficiency, and sustainability of the workplace. We’re excited to work with companies large and small as they step boldly into the hybrid workplace future.”
– Mark Gilbreath, CEO/Founder LiquidSpace
Hybrid work empowers people to work from where it works, for them.
Let’s get back to the implications. The Great Resignation is here and it’s gathering pace. Workers aren’t simply quitting their jobs in record numbers; they’re mobilizing en masse to press businesses to improve their workplace cultures – to make those cultures more equitable, more inclusive, and more conducive to work. The result is an emerging (and exciting) new workplace diversity, one that’s centered on employee choice, one that favors working environments that are enterprise grade and employee-friendly.
A people-centered hybrid approach is friendlier to the planet, too. Traffic snarls degrading our air quality, idle office towers blanketing a warming planet – the way we work isn’t working for our world. Reduced travel times – air travel, interstate travel – offer the biggest example of how hybrid work can help businesses reduce their carbon impact even as it boosts employee morale.
CoreNet 2021 was a great opportunity to connect with leaders who recognize that the world has turned. People issues are at the forefront (where they belong), and it is incumbent on today’s C-suite and real estate leaders to support workplace cultures that accommodate, not alienate. Certainly, everyone in attendance agreed the CRE industry will never be the same. For those of us at LiquidSpace, who’ve been in the workplace choice business for nearly a decade now, we believe it can be better – better for workers, better for the planet. For companies proactively offering flexible portfolios that empower workplace choice, it will be better for business.
If hybrid is the intersection of people and place, it’s also a one-way proposition. There’s no going back. If your company could use a roadmap that makes hybrid a core part of your workplace future, and we didn’t get a chance to connect at CoreNet this year, let’s schedule a time to talk. Soon.
Finding the right hybrid model for your business starts now.
We’re here to help. If you’re ready to talk hybrid strategy, we hope you’ll get in touch via the below or book a demo with our team here.