What's Next in #CRE World

Recently, I have had a chance to participate in WORKTECH 19 Bengaluru as one of the moderator of an expert panel, discussing ‘New Ways of Working and How it is Changing the Real Estate Game”. Apart from the interesting session with experts on my panel, the day long seminar had was host of prominent speakers, who had deep insight to share. There was back to back discussions, talks and interaction with almost 300 participants engaged and connected for the day, with lovely dinner and sharing of thoughts in the evening. It was probably one of the best knowledge sharing platform in the commercial real estate I have had attended, which inspired me to share some of the ideas and thoughts discussed. So here are my take-away from the event and different sessions.

Please do excuse the mistakes and misquotes, that may have crept in, as I try to recall the discussion and thoughts.

High Performance Workplaces: How new office buildings embrace the changing face of work and workplace design - Ulrich Blum, Associate, Zaha Hadid Architects

The work places are changing by the day, employees are being liberated from the cubicle farms with high walls of fabric and released to the wilderness of biophilic designs and gurukuls of collaborative spaces. The isolated work space is being converted into connected spaces and the formal is ‘giving in’, to the informal way. As Ulrich Blum mentioned, in one of the most informative talk at the WORKTECH19, the earlier trend prevalent in the industry of formal wear, now only One in Ten employees wear suit to their workplaces.

However, according to Blum, there is another significant change taking place in the way infrastructure is being developed. Office buildings are now bigger and better. The floor plates, in China and to some extent in India, are consistently moving towards Giga Floors (50,000 Sq.M – 100,000 Sq.M) from the humble super floors (500 Sq.M – 2000 Sq.M) and Mega Floors (20,000 Sq. M – 50,000 Sq.M). These large floor plates are giving a better opportunity and experimental data for the researcher to unravel the mysteries of office space – Open Office versus Cabins, Collaboration vs Connection, Flexibility vs Adaptability, Health vs Wellness etc. me conclusion about the future of work places. As Blum pointed out, ZAHA HADID team’s deep diving into the workplaces with research around every single individual work station in such large floor plates and shared few interesting result of from the work spaces…

1) The most collaboration happens within 24 second of walk.

2) The organic layout compared to linear is 10% more connected.

3) Senior Management Members are least connected as they are invariably put into some corner of the office with a ‘view’.

4) 19.16 M distance is the best for keeping amenities

5) There is a new trend gaining ground of responsive work setting

The question remains, ‘Why the work desk could not get better with time?’ And Blum had the following answer…

“Building just can’t be hardware, it has to become software” and probably that’s exactly what Bloom and his team at Zaha Hadid is working on…

Alternative Workplace Strategies: Now it is all about the People

The Expert Panel: Vibhu Singh , Vice President – Goldman Sachs, Ravi Saranagan, Executive Director – Edifice Consultants; Prasad Vemuru, Regional Director – OpenText, Syed Moinuddin, Sr. Director – CBRE and Neil Salton, MD – ChangeWorq

From sustainability to wellness, workplace has moved on to new heights in terms of employee engagement. However, as the panel discussed, I felt an undercurrent of disconnect among the panelist about the norms to be followed in the context of India. There is a subtle difference when it comes to defining and implementing International norms in Indian geography and that is what needs to be assessed and, probably tweaked to suit the Indian knowledge workers. Prasad from OpenText shared the idea of all their offices designed to give a seamless experience to their global employees, while Syed from CBRE felt the need of indigenous office space to provide the flavor and local connect. Vibhu Singh from Goldman Sachs believes the collaboration is gaining ground and their new office reflect this need of their employees to large extent, however an interesting and contrary thought was shared by Ravi of Edifice. He believes that the collaboration is in Indian Genes and we don’t need provide specific spaces to collaborate. It will happen, on its own, without any specific time and place to trigger collaboration and as Prasad highlighted, that most of the times, these spaces are left empty. In my opinion, however, collaboration is the undercurrent that is driving the young generation towards palpable ‘go-getter’ attitude, without specific triggers or places to drive the innovation. And that, I believe, is what Neil Salton of ChangeWorq called out in the discussion as “being human”.

Future of Data-Led Work space design - Melissa Marsh – Founder and Executive Director of Plastarc & Managing Director of Occupant Experience, Savills

With the advent Artificial Intelligence, the Data has become the key to driving innovation at the workplace. Before the high-end computing became the norm, there was constant collection of data to be dumped across the marsh land of inadequate analysis which festered and sunk after a time, into oblivion. However, as Melissa said, “We are living in the unique moment of time, where people and buildings are becoming the data to be mined and worked upon”. And I could not agree more with her. As more and more innovation take place in the field of data analytics, AI and interactive collaboration is bound to happen in a way, which will lead to managing people rather than the infrastructure. The hardware and physical entities will be subjugated to thinking machines and their offspring’s but what they can never replace is the human interaction and behavior, which will be needing the people managers not the facility managers. The more disruptive innovation becomes the more co-working and collaboration will happen, which is harbinger of good things to come. 

“Facility Management is no longer about Facility, the building or the equipment it is, in the essence People Management.” – Melissa Marsh

The Future of work: The impact of disruptive Technologies

The Expert Panel: Anurag Mathur, CEO – Savills; Renuka Rajagopal, Sr. Director, Real Estate Work space – Vmware, Praveen Vasudeva, Director, Workplace Resources – CISCO, Udaya Shankar, Principal – Design Alphabet, Neil Salton, MD – Changeworq

The demise of the ‘idea of office spaces segregated’ by role, department and job description is probably the first impact of disruptive technology is having on the future of workspaces. As the various demarcated job description continue to merge in the face of disruptive technologies e.g. roles of HR, Admin and Facility managers coming closer to merge in one seamless activity in near future, the convergence will slowly become a tidal wave of change that will disrupt the office landscape completely. The young generation, specially the millennial and the GenZ’s, is not chained to the archaic norms set in historic cubicle forms. They will cut across various roles and hierarchy, to get what they want to know ‘now’ instead of later and as Renuka of VMware said, “They will collaborate, nowhere near their work space, but where ever their source of inspiration, peers and manager is”. So whether the input they require ‘now’, is at the various watering holes sprinkled across the floor plate or in the CEO’s corner office, they will go and get it. The young generation is not deterred by the walls of separation but are driven by the disruptive technologies that they have been harnessing almost all their lives. As Anurag Mathur of Savills pointed out, the intangible and tangible output of an employee is blurring out in the modern work space. The future of workspace is now in the constant change. The office of 21st century is going to be about agility and disruption rather than business as usual of 20th century.

Workplace Design as a Strategic Choice - Aparna Piramal, Columnist and Writer on Business, Design, Urbanization & Workplaces – HT Mint

The office is the mirror of the man on a mission, stationed at the corner office of the headquarters or, as Aparna points out, in some cases in the middle of the office among all others. The journey to decipher, what drives the design of specific offices makes up for an interesting story that Aparna evolved into a lovely book (Working Out of the Box – 40 Stories of leading CEOs). It was an engrossing session at the work tech about ‘how the thinking process of a leader transform the environment of office and delivers?’ Aparna believes that it is in the way most of the personal office spaces of the CEO's, MD's and Founders are designed and maintained. From the Arjuna/Krishna inspiring sculpture to larger plants dotting the entire open space, various Top Executives have developed a specific way to deal with their thinking process and work culture. They have created their own temple of meditation, space to brainstorm or just their own personal space, within their own office. Aparna’s forays into minds of top executives led me to believe that there is no particular way one has to do things, but it is your own personal way and choices. One needs to introspect and find that out to deliver exemplary results and satisfaction.

Creative Architecture: The importance of intuition and taking Risk - Arunjot Bhalla, Managing Director – RSP Design Consultants (India)

Probably one the most interesting session for me was this one, as Arunjot from RSP took us to the most iconic spiritual building to begin with – Golden Temple, Amritsar. As a spiritual fiction writer, I have had traveled to many of the places, he took us to – from iconic churches in Europe, to exquisite temple architecture. And mostly, I could connect with his thoughts and buildings that he presented in a thoroughly engaging session on intuition and the enjoyment of taking a risk. From the mind-bending designs of architects to simple Japanese church with a cross in the middle of the lake, was a wonderful and nostalgic trip.

How New Ways of Working are changing the real estate game?

The Expert Panel: Juggy Marwaha, Executive Managing Director – JLL, Shobha R, Founder – Build Ed, Sudhakar Pai, Founder – SPA, Santosh Martin, Chief Marketing officer – Bagmane, Shashidhar Sharma, Business Development – Cushman & Wakefield

Well, I have had the privilege to moderate this session at the event and was impressed with the ideas and thoughts the expert panel put across the audience. What I believe, as in the beginning I presented the context to our discussion, that there are three new ways of working impacting the commercial real estate and how it is being managed. The first is ‘People’, specially the ‘Millennial’ and the ‘GenZ’, the second is Technology, specially the game changer ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and its forays into the CRE World, which can no longer be ignored and, finally the ‘Co-Working’ spaces, which I believe is a structural change. As far as the millennial and GenZ are concerned, Shobha from Build Ed reiterated that not only they are changing the way office environment behaves and is designed, they also impacting the way the buildings are being designed. Sudhakar Pai of SPA added to the idea that the way technology and new ways of construction being employed is also making the buildings more sustainable as well as cost effective, apart from being geared towards adding to employee satisfaction. The third way of working – the co-working spaces, Juggy Marwaha believes to be an effective way to engage the customers and is having an impact on the design and amenities provided in the space. Santosh of Bagmane believes that the co-working is becoming the developers important client. There is no competition as such with them, as in affect, they are not building buildings but are renting and that is good news for developers. 

Buildings: From Smart to responsive - Sander Schutte, CEO – MapiQ

The question is, in the rapidly changing office environment, why do we go to office? The idea of a service / facility being available is only to the extent that we do have a chance to use it. And the young and busy generation is all about acquiring the option to use it instead of using it. This disconnect in actual use of the facilities, amenities or services instead of ensuring the ‘availability of the option’ to use them later; is creating inbuilt ‘in-efficiency and discontent’ among users. According to Sander Schutte of MapiQ, in order to remedy the situation, there are ways we need to change the activities in and around office spaces. That is where technology is going to be a big game changer and help in…

1) Simplifying choices

2) Encouraging face to face connection

3) Promoting autonomy in Activity Based Working

4) Providing sufficient work spaces and real time insights.

Jelly Bean Working

Philip Ross, Futurologist & CEO – Cordless Group & Unwork

When one deep dives into work spaces, the results are startling, as only 8% of the people engaged in the work environment. As most of the millennial and GenZ are digital dependent, Philip of Cordless & Unwork, believes the future is ripe for the next generation of employees – Digital Generation (DigitalG) who will have digital in their DNA. He explained that the ‘digital’ will proliferate in the office space, from the ceiling to the floor, sensor everywhere, which will become the primary driving force the way this digital generation will behave and driven by.

Alexa for work is just right around corner and the future battle ground in office space will fought over noise and echo instead of the collaborating space. Another important myth that was busted in the presentation was about the idea of working from home, which took roots in early 21st century. However, it is now changing its color. According to Philip Ross, 77% of the millennial believe working from office is more important than working from Home. The reason, the future of office space is to cater to the various needs and demands of the DigitalG. It has to be the way, they need their office experience to digitally and socially conforming to their needs e.g. to be connected and as well as ‘feel at home’ and disconnected at the same time. It is ‘Catch 22’ but it is catching up…