Another week, another ‘Wave’ ??

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

This week:

1. What does WeWork’s bankruptcy mean for flexible working??
2. We’ll never go back to the office full-time, says Nick Bloom
3. 7 in 10 workers are not asked for input on hybrid discussions

Fall of a Trailblazer: What does WeWork ’s bankruptcy mean for flexible working? WeWork certainly succeeded in bringing flexible office space to the forefront but there was just one problem: the company could not make it pay, reports Financial Times . WeWork’s slide into US bankruptcy on Monday, under the weight of more than $13bn in office lease obligations, has cast a shadow over flexible workspace providers and sharpened fears about financial distress for office landlords struggling with the move to working from home. Mark Dixon , chief executive of International Workplace Group plc , argues “the travails and tribulations with WeWork” have been a “sideshow” to a huge shift in the office market. “The body blow is technology, not WeWork?.?.?.?technology is changing how people work,” Dixon said. Flexible office brands hope that companies looking to save money on large static offices will see flexible space — ranging from desks by the hour to full floors with custom designs — as a substitute, despite the trouble for the sector’s best-known name. “The great irony of WeWork’s bankruptcy is that it comes at the exact moment when the flex industry in general has been seeing record performance,” said Jamie Hodari , chief executive of Industrious . He said many companies were moving out of “oversized-headquarter space?.?.?.?into more flexible space at a more modest size”. “WeWork’s bankruptcy has been less about the lack of demand than the specifics of their business model.”? Read Full Article.

Because I Said So: 亚马逊 has built its $1.3 trillion empire largely by tracking and evaluating almost every aspect of a customer's life, reports Business Insider . This obsession with metrics and data, however, does not appear to extend to certain parts of Amazon's workplace. Over the past few months, the company has aggressively pushed employees back to the office: sending emails to employees about their attendance, creating internal dashboards to display how many days a week each employee was coming into the office, and telling managers in October that they could begin firing employees who weren't meeting the return-to-office requirements. When employees have pressed executives for the reason behind the mandate, supposedly data-obsessed higher-ups have seemed to have no data to justify it. Asked in August about this, Mike Hopkins , a senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, offered a vague response, saying that he had "no data either way" on whether mandating in-office work made people more productive but that executives believe Amazon's workers do their best work when they're together. Corporate statements about these decisions never seem to justify the shift beyond platitudes about "togetherness" and vague references to "culture." Look deeper, though, and they reveal the rotten core of the mandates. Read Full Article.

Never Going Back: Remote work guru Nick Bloom thinks we’ll never go back to the office full-time—but ‘maintaining discipline is important’, reports Yahoo Finance . When asked to describe the post-pandemic future of working from home, Bloom says it will look like a Nike swoosh: After a recent slight decline as employers called workers back to the workplace, the line is turning upward, and Bloom predicts it will keep rising as the advantages of WFH become more apparent. In his recent interview with Fortune , Bloom told how WFH, properly managed, can be good for creativity, the rules of effective hybrid models, and why the metaverse is going nowhere fast. “The most creative mode seems to be for individuals spending time both in groups and working alone. In one study, researchers randomly generated three groups. One group had to sit together in a room for four hours, continuously coming up with new ideas. The members of the second group had to sit alone. The third group had to go back and forth alternating time with the group and time alone. The third group did the best. Having some time in groups and some time on your own seems to be the most constructive. That's really why hybrid seems to dominate.” Read Full Article.

Women-Owned Businesses: In the post-pandemic economy, flexible workspaces have been linked to a spike in female entrepreneurship, reports Allwork.Space | FUTURE OF WORK? . Flexible workspaces are presenting greater opportunities for those in the workforce, particularly for women. According to a recent article published by Property Week , the workforce has encountered a staggering year-over-year growth of 37% in all-female-led enterprises. This trend is closely tied to the rise of flexible workspaces, which have gained momentum this year — altering the traditional workplace culture and offering a new way of working that better aligns with the needs of today’s workforce.?Read Full Article.

Excluded from the Conversation: Workers say they’re excluded from hybrid work discussions, yet it remains a must-have benefit, reports HR Dive . Nearly 7 in 10 respondents to a recent Eagle Hill survey said their employer has not asked for their input when it comes to remote and hybrid work preferences, yet flexibility remains a must-have benefit. Employees continue to have strong opinions on the matter, with nearly half of surveyed workers saying they would consider leaving their job if their company reduced workplace flexibility, including 61% of millennials. Respondents indicated that certain tasks benefit from being done in person, including highly social activities like integrating new team members, team building and managing team members. On the other hand, workers indicated that activities requiring individual contemplation — deep thinking, research and focus time — benefit from being done remotely. It’s a balance, right? Read Full Article.