How Real Estate Is Evolving Towards The Hybrid Model

The commercial real estate (CRE) environment of today has been upended and transformed by the social and economic pressures unleashed by the unprecedented ongoing global pandemic. The factors that businesses and leaders take into account when making executive decisions such as expansions and investments has been reprioritised. Large MNCs have had to give up their commercial real estate assets or scale down their resources in order to reduce capital expenditure and optimise their operations in order to manage liquidity. Given the current scenario in the country and the volatility on the global stage, organisations are now extremely cautious over their long-term ventures and navigating their day-to-day and strategic decisions according to the news of the day. In essence, businesses are favouring flexible and cost-effective formats of office spaces that provide more contractual flexibility and freedom of growing, shrinking or relocating their real estate and human resources.

Flexible Workspaces Provide Opportunity For Property Developers and Landlords

It’s not just businesses that are looking for more resiliency through flexible forms of real estate, property developers and landlords are seeking certainty too amidst a future of work where hybrid models of working becoming increasingly popular . With the prospect of more workforce and office workers taking up remote or flexible work practices, building occupancy rates may decrease as MNCs and businesses give up or scale down their enterprises or headcounts. In terms of business investments, there is no doubt that property developers and landlords are also seeking a profitable and sustainable solution to the challenges of demand triggered by the pandemic which will pervade into the future of the CRE market. So what options are available for landlords to attract tenants to take-out long-term leases for real estate space in a fixed location that offer little more than the space agreed as outlined by a contract?

That’s where Flexible Workspace providers such as The Executive Centre comes into play. Consider them the “middleman” or “link” between landlords and tenants who absorb the risks from both parties by taking up costly long-term leases, furnishing the office spaces with ready-to-use facilities and offering various services like concierge, meeting rooms, private workstations and IT support. From the perspective of business leaders and office occupants, flexible workspaces provide a cost-efficient pathway to otherwise inaccessible prime locations with lowered capital expenditure costs and operational costs as furnishing and the personnel required to operate a day-to-day business is all managed by the workspace provider.

Hybrid Models Enable Working From Anywhere

Moreover, with a flexible workspace product or plan, occupants can often take advantage of the other Centres within the service provider’s network. With TEC these means business leaders and the employees within an organisation can adopt flexible working practices as suited to their location and operational requirements. For instance, if a worker needs to take a virtual conference call early in the morning at home, and then travel across town to meet a client in the central business district, and then go to a third location they can do so knowing that they have more professional touchdown spaces to meet up.

Our What Is An Office campaign explores how the space you need to do your work successfully changes throughout the day

Another scenario exists where a business decides to maintain their employee headcount but reduce their corporate real estate by adopting a hybrid model of work. These hybrid models can take many forms depending on the versatility that a business requires. From taking A-B shifts to with a certain number of workers operating remotely at home and the remaining at the flexible workspace for a duration of time – rotating every half week, couple months or half year to compressed work weeks and job sharing. Having Flexible Workspaces in a corporate real estate portfolio can open up the possibility for an agile, mobile and reactive workforce which in turn bolsters business resiliency.

How We Are Growing Our Flexible Workspace Network

At The Executive Centre, we position ourselves as providers of premium flexible workspaces. Our Centres are optimised and designed for the success seekers and savvy professionals of the future, anticipating and filling flexible corporate real estate demand need with our signature Member’s-First approach to expansion. From pinpointing demand and careful construction, we’ve grown our footprint across 14 markets and 32 cities covering 3.1 million sq feet of collaborative workspace over 27 years of sustained growth.

Last year our Global Community grew from 27,000 Members to now 32,000 Members and we opened 20 new Centres, with 3 of those being in India and all of this is during the pandemic period, which shows us there is a real demand for flexible workspaces. Moreover, according to the recent report by Colliers, Flexible Workspaces saw corporate clients leasing over 11,800 seats with them during the quarter. In the upcoming quarters as the country slowly phases back to normalcy, we expect that there will be an even greater demand for flexible workspaces and I’m confident to say that we are ready to lead the flexible workspace industry forward. Our growth and expansion strategy based on fostering close relationships with landlords and offering premium services through a demand-driven philosophy is one that we see taking The Executive Centre and the real-estate industry forward to deliver the flexible-working real estate needs of office occupants, business leaders and property developers of tomorrow.

Take a virtual tour of our centres around the world here.