Another week, another ‘Wave’ ???

5 news items from the world of work and workplace that you can digest in 5 minutes.

This week:

1. Is remote work just e-commerce déjà vu all over again?
2. Could the bank collapses affect the coworking industry?
3. Remote work is changing the way new homes are designed

The Future of the Office: Commercial real estate has a ‘shock coming’ as return-to-office plans fall short, said CEO of International Workplace Group plc , Mark Dixon . “There’s this assumption that people like commuting into a central business district. They don’t. It’s a complete waste of time and money and they don’t want to do it,” Mark told CNBC . He added that employees are now working more productively “than they’ve ever done before” and there is a “real opportunity” for the use of real estate to change. In fact, he said that offices could work like gas stations. “They’re everywhere, it’s a network of petrol stations, you can drive anywhere in the country. Work will be like that. You will find places to work everywhere, we network them all together and make them easy to use.” Read Full Article.

Déjà Vu: Is remote work just e-commerce déjà vu all over again? From her experience in the retail sector, Perkins&Will ’s Jane C. Greenthal sees parallels that cross-over to workplace strategy. “Stepping back, it seems we might’ve seen this movie before, in another industry: retail. Granted, it didn’t have the abruptness of the lockdowns and a global public health concern, but it was a disruption that nonetheless reshaped the industry.” In the wake of this shift, retailers did one of three things: Stick their heads in the sand: e-commerce is a passing fad and will never replace stores; Pivot: e-commerce will replace in-store shopping and we have to be digital-only; Go hybrid: maybe there’s room here to capitalize on e-commerce AND in-store shopping. All feels pretty familiar to me. Read Full Article.

Fathers Want Flex: Fathers gained family time in the pandemic, and many don’t want to give it back, reports 纽约时报 . New data shows one fifth of fathers who took on more childcare during lockdowns have kept it up, and one quarter have continued to do more household work, and rearranged their work lives to do so. A 2022 survey showed 47% of employed fathers said flexibility and control over their hours was a top priority, nearly half said they planned to work less or pursue a less demanding job in the future — more than the share of mothers who said so. Read Full Article.

Bank Collapses: Is history repeating? We don’t think so. In less than a fortnight, three banking pillars of the tech industry collapsed, with the announcement of a winding down of Silvergate , the sudden closure of Silicon Valley Bank and on Sunday, the shut down of Signature Bank . Consultant and Professor, Jonathan Price , explains when a similar thing happened in 2001, it had a profound effect on the coworking industry. However, today is a different story: “Away from California, coworking companies with few small tech company clients are unlikely to be affected by these events to any great degree. The industry as a whole is much bigger and stronger than it was in 2001, and today’s problems are unlikely to be more than blip in the long-term structural growth trend of coworking, but for those centers that are full of tech clients, life is going to be more interesting than usual for the next few weeks. Coworking companies that are weak for other reasons may also be pushed over the edge by any significant downturn in occupancy.” Read Full Article.

Does Your Home Have a Zoom Room? Remote work is changing the way new homes are designed, reports Business Insider . Architects are designing homes with a work-life balance for remote workers in mind. The real estate site Zillow said offices were mentioned in 11.5% of all listings in February 2023, up 4.5% from the year before. Listings that mention a home office or a "Zoom room," which is set up for video calls, can sell for 1.6% more than expected and six days faster than similar homes without one, according to Zillow's latest annual review. Amanda Pendleton , Zillow 's home-trends expert said a home office was no longer a "nice-to-have luxury.” “It's becoming a must-have essential for today's home shoppers and increasingly a standard feature in new construction homes."?Read Full Article.