What Is the Future of Coworking? 5 Takeaways from the GCUC Conference
It’s been 1.5 years since the COVID-19 pandemic began. What’s coming up in the coworking world? Here are our Director’s top takeaways from her recently attending the Global Coworking Unconference (in real life!)
Last month I attended “GCUC - NYC” (pronounced “juicy”) - the Global Coworking Unconference for North America, Fall 2021. We at Open Gov Hub have been following the GCUC Network for the last few years - which is the world’s largest coworking conference series and also a network of independent coworking operators - and we officially became a member during the pandemic. But this was my first time attending one of their signature global events (also, my first in-person conference since the pandemic started!). Here are my top 5 takeaways from this timely gathering:
The future is “flex.” Flex is the umbrella term for a growing portion of real estate (which includes coworking certainly, but also includes other flexible commercial spaces like executive suites, event spaces like Convene where we in fact gathered for this conference, etc.). Many speakers discussed this emerging trend in commercial real estate, and now there is also a growing body of data to support this. For example, a recent survey conducted by JLL indicated that 74% of teams want the ability to come to an office post pandemic. Deskpass (a coworking platform that OGH is listed on) has seen tremendous growth in the last several months as they have expanded to over a dozen new cities. Deskpass data from shared spaces across the country also indicates that most users consider a variety of factors when choosing a space - proximity to home is a big one (in favor of short commutes), as is strong wifi of course, but users also seek an overall environment for productivity, which includes a mix of quiet private spaces for focused work, along with ample meeting rooms and opportunities to interact with colleagues face to face.
In the end, Flex Space is still only a very small percentage of the overall office market, but it is quickly growing and evolving. Of course, the Coworking industry - like all other industirese - took a significant hit due to the pandemic (especially given that we all gather people together, by nature!) But it is bouncing back, with growing demand for further flexibility, which the conference speakers believe is now here to stay.
The future is niche. One speaker noted how something happened to the hotel industry in recent decades that is now beginning to happen to coworking. Given the plethora of options in the market, nearly every hotel these days now has a niche or “point of view.” Travels don’t just seek a comfortable place to spend the night, but have more and more options to suit their particular lifestyle and preferences. The same trend is beginning to emerge now with coworking. As the industry starts to mature after 10+ years, coworking users have more and more options and therefore will self-select into niche environments that really felt particularly suited for themselves. Communities should increasingly be rooted in specialized professional roles/values/interests/needs. Interestingly, Open Gov Hub was way ahead of the curve on this point! Founded in 2012, OGH has had a very unique point of view and specialized community - rooted in shared values - that has served us very well, supporting our organic growth over the years. And this niche should increasingly be an asset for us as the coworking market becomes more crowded with more specialized options.
The new “OGH 3.0” space at 1100 13th St NW was designed with lots of great features in the physical space, which are becoming increasingly in demand! Architects, IT specialists and other workplace experts spoke about a variety of features for physical office spaces that are becoming increasingly important in this new work of hybrid working. Fortunately, the OGH design team had the foresight to integrate these in our brand new space that we moved into earlier this year, based on our own lessons learned from operating since 2012 and valuable member feedback!
Balancing spaces for individual and collaborative work? Check. We have always had a ton of meeting spaces to balance out the open plan workstations, and we even increased the diversity and ratio of collaboration spaces in our new space (we have 178 desks total, and 35 collaboration spaces, so one meeting space for every 5 desks!) Increasing wellness features (natural light, plants, natural textures, and outdoor space when possible)? Check. One of the big appeals of our new location is ample natural light throughout the office, plus not one but 2 outdoor spaces! Invest in excellent HVAC especially for COVID-19 health and safety measures and beyond? Check. Moving during the pandemic gave us the opportunity to re-envision our air filtration system from the ground up - our new location has hospital-grade, MERV-13 filtration in the central HVAC system, plus we added supplemental air purifiers to all meeting rooms.
4. COVID has triggered a whole new emphasis and new ways to think about health - both for our spaces, and our communities. OGH will continue enhanced air filtration and other new health and safety measures even after the pandemic ends. We also continue in our phased reopening process and policy updates, which are regularly informed by member input. But in addition, we think it is a very positive trend that employers across industries are now increasingly aware of and placing a greater emphasis on supporting not only the physical health but also the mental health of their employees. Burnout and chronic stress are real risks, especially for all of us who work in the social sector. Having a community of coworkers at OGH (who aren’t your colleagues in your organization, but who are other peers in your sector that can often relate to the challenges you face and provide a safe space of additional support) is a great help! And burnout prevention has actually emerged as one of the key objectives and impacts that we see from our Global Affiliate Hubs program. But as the OGH team we also hope to explore how we can support more positive mental health for our network moving forward.
5. The future will be characterized by remote/hybrid teams/orgs a lot more than just remote/hybrid workers moving forward. For many years, coworking, remote working and flexible space options were all seen as particularly designed for individual workers - like entrepreneurs, creatives, freelancers and consultants. But now, emerging from the pandemic, the most common users of such flexible options are now changing, to become entire teams and organizations rather than individuals. The best example of this is how one of the oldest and slowest-moving industries is even adapting to this new trend - the federal government agency responsible for all government offices spaces is GSA. GSA in fact is the single largest office tenant in the world, responsible for nearly 2 million workers! GSA recently signed a new $50 million, 5 year contract with 5 of the leading coworking operators and platforms. This will certainly create a major shift in the office footprint of Washington, DC, but is also indicative of trends more broadly.
Still itching for more juicy tidbits (pun intended ;)? Check out these 30+ takeaways and quotes from GCUC-NYC 2021.
As I step back and reflect on these new coworking industry shifts and trends and Open Gov Hub’s own 9-year evolution, I am incredibly proud that we’ve been ahead of the curve in many ways (despite being a rather scrappy nonprofit ourselves!) Most of all, we’ve always prioritized the people of our community and the relationships between them - being keenly attentive to member feedback and constantly looking for opportunities to connect members to each other (which is much easier to do since we have always had a niche them, which gives us a common foundation of shared values and a shared vision for how the world should be).
And like any good organization, we will continue to listen and learn from our peers and our key stakeholders, as we continue to adapt how to best fulfill our mission and sustain our operations financially in response to seismic shifts to how people work in the months and years to come!
