roundtable 27


Commercial real estate agent Simon Peacock wondered if occupiers were approaching developers early enough to discuss pre-lets. Dean said SEGRO’s current demolition and enabling work would assist occupiers to schedule their requirements better.


Where is demand coming from?


Dean said there was still a cross section of space requirement in the Thames Valley, from large corporates (Aker Solutions had taken 270,000 sq ft, Huawei – 140,000 sq ft) to SMEs needing just 2-3,000 sq ft. “Lease events are driving some demand but there’s also growing corporate M&A activity, and many companies operating out of split sites.


“Occupiers know they can achieve lots of running cost and workplace efficiencies by getting everybody under a single roof. We’ve had a number of such requirements, which are driven by both cost savings and operational efficiencies.”


Is flexible hub-working the future?


John Alker: “As a green NGO we recently asked: ‘In a future where resources are more constrained, where are the business opportunities?’ We did some horizon scanning, and trends such as advances in IT and changes in working patterns (more people working flexibly from home, part- time or with two jobs) came through very strongly. So flexibility is absolutely essential for future office requirements. We are seeing that in a niche way now with landlords beginning to be more flexible but I think we are going to see that on a massive scale. With cloud computing and better security of data, companies, even competitors, may share space in buildings and share the economic advantages of this type of ‘hub-working’ environment.”


Early: “It’s about needs and working culture. Things won’t change overnight, or across the board. Each company will have different requirements. There is a big cultural resistance to changing patterns of work, often inertia, and it requires a different form of management. Some line managers struggle to manage people they can’t see.”


Hiatt: “I like the club model with an office of meeting places where people can interchange views – an environment of creativeness and innovation that drives businesses.”


Chris Early


Chris Early explained that Telefonica had changed rapidly – “acquiring parcels of new very flexible space to accommodate various project teams.” Consolidation of core space had brought cost advantages through single building management and reduced staff travel between sites, but also an improved campus-style work environment.


Ian Durbin agreed that running costs were a driver of change in the market. “The shackles are on expenditure, which will only favour more mobile working.”


Early said there was demand among small growing companies, particularly for fundamentally different working environments that supported flexibility and workstyle change. Some owners were keeping properties empty because they were holding out for market pick-up or a traditional letting arrangement – which they were not going to get.


“Coming into the commercial property market I found it rather ossified, with a lot of archaic practices and quite rigid offerings. As a tenant I feel the market has a long way to go in providing proper flexibility and variety to support a growing UK economy.”


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – SEPTEMBER 2012


Alker suggested that people working from home could go ‘stir crazy’ and this could provide opportunities for service provision. “I think we will see more suburban-hub working, where people use local centres for a change of scene, interaction with other workers and a decent cup of coffee.”


The average commute to London took 58 minutes per day – four years over a working life, Alker revealed.


“The key word is ‘average’. Many people have longer commutes and when the infrastructure goes wrong ….that’s where the frustration and burn-out comes in. How do we provide a suitable working environment that avoids that?”


Murray pointed out that technology, such as smartphones and laptops, allows for commuting time to be used productively.


Early: “People are re-assessing the way they work. I did. I used to spend hours commuting to London every day. Some days were valuable but on others I churned through work that I could have done elsewhere or at home. The only benefits were meetings and interaction with people, but I didn’t need to be seeing the same people in that same vanilla environment five days a week.”


A lot of people still like vanilla


Consulting engineer Durbin: “I guess I am part of this fringe; this mobile flexible


Kate Dean


Location, location, location…


Alker pointed out that while flexible out- of-town working may be a trend for the future, cities continue to be a popular focus, particularly London.


Hiatt: “For our occupiers it is all about


www.businessmag.co.uk Continued overleaf ...


working environment – I work across two offices and home, and all I need is a docking station and somewhere to make tea. But, maybe 90% of what we do is still the standard vanilla – and it will get better, and better, not just from the compliance point of view with regulatory bodies, but because occupiers are focusing on work environment and energy costs and we will have to react to that.”


Architectural designer Yvette Hanson agreed that the workplace is changing but said there would still be a need for ‘traditional office requirements’. “Talk tends to focus on the mobile workforce, new ways of working and the trend for management to focus on output rather than the hours spent at a desk; about technology and empowering people to work where and how they want, which really suits some businesses but I don’t see offices disappearing. There still needs to be a hub and there are still many businesses such as the financial institutions and the legal firms who would still struggle to perform their day-to-day job sitting in a coffee shop with a laptop."


Hanson agreed with Peacock however, that the internal design and functionality of office areas has and will continue to be more varied and flexible.


Bates: “Flexible working has always been a driver of demand in the market albeit a relatively small one when compared to large corporate located across the Thames Valley who are still acquiring large-scale HQ offices, to accommodate big, largely office-based workforces. Current examples would include Aker Solutions acquiring over 200,000 sq ft at Chiswick, in West London with IMG and Huawei being under offer on 110,000 and 140,000 sq ft at Heathrw and Reading respectively.”


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