I attended a meeting in a hotel
lobby some time ago and as I entered the vast room I was struck by just how many
similar meetings were going on. I’ve
been doing business like this for a many years now and there have always been
plenty of others doing the same thing, but I haven’t witnessed quite such
numbers other than in a conference environment.
These people were clearly not all
part of one group. Everywhere there were
earnest and convivial conversations going on as the participants leaned over
laptops from comfortable armchairs and sofas.
One of my companions was a high flyer in commerce and I asked him if
this really was a phenomenon that has arisen in relatively recent years or was
it always so outside the professions. He
confirmed that technology has made all the difference to the numbers now
conducting business in this way, so much so that hotels are specifically
gearing up for this kind of trade and often turn a greater profit per square
foot of informal meeting space (even the formal meeting rooms are disappearing)
than bedrooms, bars or restaurants. The
table turn is high and yet coffee, sandwiches and Wi-Fi access are consumed in
sufficient quantities to deliver very healthy margins.
The hotel I attended was part of a
chain and yet it was well appointed and an improvement on most offices I have
ever worked in or visited. Free parking
was plentiful and the whole experience was energising. Once over, my colleagues and I went our separate
ways, all working from home as it happens.
This is not a trend that I can see
being reversed. People are being freed
from the constraints of working in one fixed place and firms should at the very
least be asking themselves whether they need as much office space as they
currently occupy and whether there are opportunities to reduce rental and
associated overheads and engage in a more flexible and in my opinion more
enjoyable way of working. I recommend a
strategic review of all leases and a plan in place well before lease expiry and
break dates, as once those dates pass with new leases or further locked in
periods, the opportunity will be lost for several more years during which time
the pace of change in technology may cause a largely office bound workforce to
appear more and more anachronistic.
A shift in working patterns could
also bring about changes in volumes of certain types of work. A shrinking market for office space would
obviously impact on the volume of commercial property transactions as office
space lies empty. Shortages of good
housing stock could lead to office blocks being transformed into apartments,
thereby rejuvenating the residential market.
Strategic reviews may need to be far reaching…
