Rebuilding Work (and Life) In the City

Economists are predicting the “doom loop” for cities: more remote work, more layoffs from tech companies resulting in abnormal increase in vacancies in office space leading to less mass transit usage, less foot traffic leading to less restaurant diners and shoppers and then the loop continues with less taxes and income for cities resulting in lesser amenities and higher crime leading to people leaving cities forever – and we will be just left with towering buildings and empty streets perfect for a Hollywood set.?

The warning signs are ominous- as of last week 174 million square feet of office space is available for sublease nearly twice as much pre-pandemic, New Yorkers are predicted to spend north of $10B less this year in the city and San Francisco is seeing the highest number of migrations out in 50 years…

It’s interesting to note that analysts pinpoint “remote work” as the primary cause of these phenomena – reality is that pre-pandemic cities had already pushed the people living there to the edge with crazy rents, increased homelessness, inefficient services and rising crime – it just took the push with the pandemic for people to leave for greener pastures.?

In last week’s blog, I had mentioned that work from anywhere is a reality so there is no going back to no remote work.??The time is now to rebuild – create the workplaces of the future in cities that mirror and accommodate the lifestyle of the new age digital worker.

So what is the workplace in the city going to look like??

Let’s start by looking at what makes people happy at work… Work is about interacting, collaborating and engaging with our team and our partners in environments where we feel productive and empowered. The new workplace needs to accommodate the “mobile” worker – they need to feel they have the same level of flexibility at the office that they have at home, as an example they use the same consumer digital apps they use at home or schedule their rest time in their favorite “away” spot or just book the ping pong table at the end of their day…all these are now part of their work lifestyle that cannot be taken away just because they are “back at the office”.?

The real value of course are those unexpected encounters that enrich us in real face-face encounters, the “water cooler” moments and the ability to engage in the hallways, aisles and “smoker’s only” outposts. As homo sapiens we all gravitate towards personal encounters with our boss and our peers -this develops the bond with our work and ultimately our employer.?

The Workplace SuperApp?by CXApp provides a full-stack solution that allows employees to experience all their work tools and their life needs in an employee engagement app. Not only from one single app can they make their Zoom calls and Slack messages, they can set the perfect temperature for their meeting room, they can order their food through Doordash and check on their EV’s charge status and have their transit times programmed so they know when to leave and not miss their kid’s piano recital back at school. They can also decide who at work they want to meet when and where and how they have the power to make their schedule and balance work and life needs from the palm of their hands. This will start people loving their work and workplace…check out this demo here.

And this love and desire to be working from anywhere will create the flywheel effect of loving to be back in the city. Loving to have the after-work drink at the local watering hole, coming in early for the special latte with their new colleague or a breakthrough idea with your best work friends on a napkin at a late-nite diner.?

This new workplace will also start revitalizing city environments and I predict cities will develop into social bazaars where a New York City minute will really mean being in the moment!?

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