The New Avatar Of Coworking Spaces

As vaccination gathers pace and companies gradually bring back their workforce to offices, the new work reality also has coworking companies reinventing their business and operational models

- Rukmini Rao

WORK FROM home or back to the office — the debate still rages. While work from home, or WFH as is common parlance now, was a panacea for workflow disruption, companies are acutely aware of the toll it has taken on mental health, collaboration, performance management and, most importantly, the work culture at their organisations. A recent survey by real estate consultancy firm CBRE showed that while the “purpose” of an office may have changed, the relevance of a physical workplace remains undiminished.

The compromise so far has been a hybrid working model, with some employees trudging back to offices and the rest working from home. But, as the pace of vaccination picks up, companies are gearing up to bring back more of their employees into a physical workplace. Only, it may not necessarily be back to their office. Instead, the coworking space is becoming an increasingly attractive proposition.

The strategy around new workplace models is now centred on flexibility, to balance employee satisfaction with business requirements. And this is the biggest reason why, after a year-long lull, coworking space operators are bullish. Indian coworking firms have been bulking up, with nearly 75,000 seats leased this year. Their flex stock, an industry term for a coworking space, currently stands at 36 million sq. ft, up from 31 million sq. ft last year, according to CBRE, and is expected to grow by 10-15 per cent annually over the next three years.