Office as a Service instead of home

Dr. Tobias Wagner at www.medium.com

 

Social distancing is the order of the day - also in the world of work

The suffering of society and the economy under COVID-19 is currently being reflected in unusual images in our cities: normally busy places are deserted, streets congested with traffic are empty, restaurants and shops are closed with a few exceptions. The recommendations and restrictions issued by politicians, authorities and virologists to contain the pandemic have shifted our world, which until recently was still pulsating in public spaces, into the private and digital space. The goal: Flatten the Curve. The order of the day in this regard: social distancing.

 

Flexible workspaces instead of the office and constant yoga at home!

Many personal meetings have been cancelled, home office has been expanded to an unprecedented extent. Does anyone need office space these days?

Absolutely. Especially flexible workspaces. Why?

1. Home office (whether voluntary or ordered) is not feasible everywhere and not for everyone. Sometimes the appropriate infrastructure is lacking at home. It is not uncommon for concentrated, undisturbed or confidential work to simply not be possible.
2. The spatial separation of operating units required by many companies and businesses as a preventative measure or, worse, suddenly due to infection in order to safeguard critical functions and processes requires decentralized office solutions. Alternative and transitional areas are needed quickly.
3. Projects and work must be managed. Even in this challenging situation, constant yoga at home is not an attractive long-term solution for everyone.

My home is my castle doesn't work everywhere.

Offices and workspaces that can be booked at short notice and flexibly for exclusive use, especially those with contactless handover, are a solution to the work infrastructure that is needed right now.

 

Traditional office rental offers and coworking spaces are not a solution

Traditional office rental offers cannot do this: Negotiating and signing a multi-year lease in uncertain times is economically questionable. On the one hand, the planning security for one's own company that still existed just a few weeks ago has rapidly decreased - Corona has changed the world, but how and with what consequences is not yet foreseeable. On the other hand, entering into a corresponding long-term bond to cover short-term needs is pointless - the Corona pandemic and the associated requirements and precautionary measures will in all probability be a transitional phenomenon, albeit one that will keep politics, society and the economy busy and changing for a long time to come.

Coworking operators, who are among the pioneers of flexible office solutions with comparatively short-term rental contracts, are also largely out of business. Their offer is primarily geared towards the form of office work whose name speaks for itself: coworking, the cooperation of strangers in an area. Its typical characteristics are open space, meeting zones, closely spaced desks, coming and going and inevitable numerous contacts - in other words, the opposite of social distancing.

 

Sharing temporarily unused offices: That’s it!

What is needed are offices and workspaces that are flexible in terms of time and space, closed, technically well-equipped, i.e. office as a service. This office infrastructure is provided by the specialists of the sharing economy. This is made possible by the networking of space owners and space seekers, structured searches, simple presentation, inquiry, booking and payment processes, mobile access, localization and local searches.

One of the pioneers here is, for example, the Munich-based company ShareYourSpace with its web platform of the same name, ShareYourSpace. On this platform, all offices and spaces that are not permanently occupied can be offered or rented: all locations, locations, sizes, equipment. Whether office rooms or entire floors. There is no restriction to certain locations, not just high-priced spaces and - back to the order of the day - spaces, desks, offices for exclusive use "ready to use". In addition, ShareYourSpace also allows short-term and spatially small-scale bookings.

This brings the flexibility that is urgently needed right now to office and work environments.