Convenient + Flexible: The Ideal Workplace And ‘Work-way’ Combination Going Forward In Our Post-Pandemic World
by: Ray Lindenberg, Founder and President of Winning Workspaces Hospitality Group which for over 30 years has consulted with organizations and workspace providers for optimal, productive work-way efficiency. Ray is also the Founder and President of the multiple award-winning international serviced workspace alliance: The Workspace Association Of New York with members operating over 1,500 locations globally.
It’s been a challenging year-and-a-half for sure as we finally spring forward to the new reality of working in a post-pandemic world. The deck has been shuffled and the new reality is that how we went about our ‘business’ in the past will now be tempered by a sobering set of factors that crystalized as most of us were home-bound, cautious and quarantining while CoVid-19 redefined our priorities and objectives.
We learned that working every day full-time at our business’s sometimes distant, off-site HQ is not the absolute must many of us grew up practicing … and that we could be productive, sometimes more so, if we worked from home on occasion, and that by doing so we no longer risked being regarded as slackers which, for some, psychologically bumped up against our work ethic. We also learned that we could work better and productively at a nearby convenient workplace, on the occasions when working from home wasn’t ideal and a professional office setting was the appropriate place to conduct business and certainly to meet clients, prospects and associates, instead of at one’s dining room, living room or home office.
For those that worked for larger, centralized companies allowing and, in some instances, encouraging off-site, closer-to-home-working became the new, approved and improved way to work for health and safety concerns as well as for morale, work-life balance, productivity, thriftiness and even corporate financial savings reasons. You bunch all these factors together and you have the makings of a bold, fresh, new way forward that speaks to the current times and which was tested and practically perfected during the CoVid recession.
People need to work wherever they can best deliver results … and being at sometimes distant headquarters isn’t the ‘must’ that it used to be. We saw that Zoom meetings worked reasonably well when live interfacing was required. And having the luxury to have a nearby, commute-and-traffic saving executive suite or touchdown space as your home base, especially if you are a solopreneur, is just what the doctor ordered. That’s why professionally managed Business Centers, coworking spaces and flex spaces continue to be, by far, the #1 choice of cost-conscious small business owners and freelancers, as well as for agile, large enterprise employees who are focused on deliverables and using their time more wisely.
The times have changed. Working conveniently and flexibly, and outsourcing one’s work-way needs to a top-flight, professionally staffed and cost-efficient workplace provider has become the North Star of success-driven business owners and star performers at corporations. It’s one of the few valuable lessons and Darwinist results that evolved from the darkness of the pandemic. Lead. Be fleet-of-foot. Work smarter. Be professional. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that home-working will always do the trick if you want your business to truly grow and prosper. Most of us still flourish more in corporate environments – that’s how we grew up. Welcome to the brave new world where choosing the right workplace and work-way will bolster one’s efforts and lead to the outburst of advantages that everyone is competitively working so hard to achieve.
