roundtable


and services that matters. Out-of-town property landlords or owners who get that right – the food, leisure, childcare facilities etc – will still succeed.” Business parks with diverse property ownerships tended to suffer from lack of co- ordinated investment on amenity/service provision.


Infrastructure serving out-of-town locations was important, noted Witchalls. The 1980s technology boom introduced the car-based American business park model to the Thames Valley. While many larger parks had developed bus or cycling links, car travel was still required to reach several out-of-town locations.


1980s car parking ratios for business parks were around 1:200 sq ft (one car space for every other person), Thomas mentioned. Today, town-centre premises may provide 1:5,000 sq ft. Hence the urban focus on ease of train, bus and cycle commuting etc.


Stamatis suggested many business park landlords are now adjusting their traditional asset-based property mindsets and developing their hospitality skillsets. “It’s not enough to own the building, make sure the air-conditioning works. They now need to be a concierge and provide hotel-like services.


“Significantly, The Porter Building in Slough recently advertised itself with the line: ‘As long as it’s legal, we’ll find a way to fix it for you’. That’s an interesting strapline for a building; one you wouldn’t have seen 4-5 years ago.”


Develop worklife culture . . . but don’t allow nest building


Modern workspace facilities needed to meet various generational expectations and also harmonise with a staff- accepted worklife culture, Witchalls emphasised. “The building is just a building; if your business culture is wrong, employees won’t enjoy working there.” The workspace design at PBA (a Best Place to Work award-winner) supports collaborative innovation within a fair and open culture.


“The future is something to embrace,” said De Vince while stressing the need to balance home and remote working with valuable face-to-face meetings. “Having an office space where you collaborate with colleagues is so important. Like today’s Roundtable, discussion shares knowledge and awareness, and good ideas come out.”


Witchalls: “There’s a lot more business willingness to be open-minded about flexible working and shared space, but employees still tend to cluster so be mindful against areas becoming their little bit of personalised real estate within the


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 2017


building.” Such ‘nesting’ can undermine an agile workplace. Innovation thrives on cross-discipline collaborative teams, rather than people sitting at their same desks every day.


Stamatis posed the question: “What is an office?” suggesting it varied according to the business – it could be a space to perform a function, or hold a forum, collaborate or simply chat over concerns.


“It’s very difficult to be prescriptive about office space. It’s simply what the culture of that company needs to perform its business well.” But, he saw no possibility of ‘the virtual office’ becoming the only reality.


What do businesses actually need? Maybe a user manual …


Thomas highlighted that companies need to carefully research the true nature and needs of their business before embarking on workspace change. Poor use of space – eg work-distraction within open-plan environments – could actually harm staff performance. “Workplace re-design is not just about saying ‘We are going to go agile’.”


Stamatis agreed: “As designers we are increasingly asking clients ‘Why do you want to do this? What is your cultural drive, your creative objective?’ The quantitative approach of ‘how many people in how big a space’ is now being replaced by this objective approach to workspace use.”


Having created the redesigned workspace there was also the need to manage the cultural change and induct staff into the new usages of their workspace.


... co-working collaboration, or a shed-load of privacy?


Many companies embrace co-working as an asset for potential rapid scale-up plus the interchange of ideas and contacts, mentioned Sarah Friend: “But it depends on whether a business wants to buy into that collaborative environment; some just want their own space and privacy.”


Witchalls: “We embrace and encourage co-working because it helps make our people more open-minded and innovative.”


Stamatis revealed that some major corporates engage with a co-working provider like WeWork to provide flexible space for partner projects or satellite businesses. “The co-working model is exploding in London. You get the serendipity business opportunity and tech-enabled community culture at the same time. It’s incubation and clubhouse style is set to stay and grow.”


Continued overleaf ... businessmag.co.uk 33 David Thomas


Hannah Dutfield


Paul de Vince


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