Breaking free from the binary ‘Home vs. Corporate’ office paradigm

Continuing our blog post series on the Future of Work, we’ve touched on the importance of technology in shaping the future of work, how leaders can adapt to the ‘new normal” and how workplace managers can stay relevant by leveraging digital solutions to differentiate office spaces and meet the evolving needs of workers. We also discussed our vision challenging the traditional notion of the office as the only solution for achieving organizational goals and explored alternative ways to create great teams and achieve collaboration thanks to new technologies (video conferencing portals, tenant apps, mobile access credentials across entire portfolios etc.), to create the right environment for teams to thrive. 

For office workers, hybrid is no fad, but a widely accepted fact of life, with only a few exceptions. To attract and retain talent, and to provide a ‘modern’ workplace experience with maximum productivity, we think that employers will progressively break away from the binary system of either work from home, or from the office. There are three key factors driving change in corporate real estate management: 

1. The global distribution of teams 

2. The need to sometimes recruit the best talent for the job regardless of their location near a corporate HQ 

3. To operate in a more agile and cost-effective way  

At JLL Spark, we believe that organizations will increasingly use third party coworking spaces under this new paradigm and supplement their corporate HQs with flex contracts and ‘workspaces on demand’ (like 50 permanent desks in a coworking space) to manage overflow and provide more flexibility to employees.  

This is why we invested in Desana, a leading global PropTech company that offers corporate real estate teams the ability to centralize, manage, and pay for all their flex space bookings, including workspace on demand for their global employees. 

With Desana, portfolios can be right sized within minutes, not months. Their application enables corporations to scale their real estate quickly and cost effectively as demand shifts. For instance, what if you could provide workspace on demand for six to 12 months in that new market you are about to open? Based on the granular utilization data that Desana provides, you could then see the area with the most bookings, the actual volumes (number of bookings for desks and meeting rooms) and find just the right office lease. 

What if you wanted to book event space once a month for large client events (50+ attendees), but don’t have enough space in your office? Desana’s got you covered.  

The best profile for that important job vacancy isn’t near one of your corporate locations? No problem, that employee will be able to book quality office space through the application. 

As discussed in our previous post, combining Desana with other technologies can really help corporations to take the future of work in their own hands and provide more productive, happier, and engaged employees, while reducing costs and CO₂ emissions due to more efficiencies.  

At JLL Spark, our investments in the Future of Work are based on our client’s technology needs for added flexibility and efficiencies in their workspace strategies. Whether you are a PropTech entrepreneur, a corporate end user, or a JLL colleague, we encourage you to come partner with us in our mission to bring best in class solutions to the ecosystem.

Written by Arnaud Bouzinac, Growth Principal at JLL Spark

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