Rents, operational costs and, indeed, labour costs in Prague are rising. They're not rocketing, but it's noticeable. Every owner or chief financial officer is (or soon will be) faced with the question of how to deal with rising office occupational costs. Increasingly, in this context, the 'agile office’, which provides a flexible working environment, will get on the agenda. What does this term mean?
Flexibility is slowly becoming a key concept for offices. It entered managerial vocabulary in the mid-1990s, mainly in connection with the workforce. The office environment is now changing along with the workforce. This has been particularly evident in the last two years, where the options of flexible space have expanded rapidly, including coworking.
The word 'flexible' is a very, very broad term. Flexibility can be understood as the flexibility and adaptability of a physical office space which responds to changing user requirements. At the same time, however, it expresses the flexibility of the lease conditions, i.e. the possibility to rent premises for a specific time and to the extent which meets the clients’ needs.
This rental flexibility is then logically reflected in cost savings. Let us start from these simple figures valid for June 2019. In Prague, on average, there is an area of 12 m2 per employee.
The evolution of the working environment and user perception has been enhanced by technology advancement - from fast internet to shared clouds and online communication platforms. Of course, it is an advantage or a condition only for certain professions. It also reflects in the change in working relationships, where the number of part-time or project-based jobs has increased.
Developers, owners and property managers already have plenty of options to offer, at least partially, flexible offices. The easiest way is to rent part of the space to a specialised operator. At the same time, they may be inspired by some of the ‘Agile Office Checklist’.
An Agile Office should be:
1. Modular: Can be reconfigured depending on the intended use
2. Multi-task friendly: There are as many workspaces as there are working methods during the day
3. Divisible: Spaces can be easily divided
4. Connected: The building can collect data from its environment and respond in real time to optimize office space and use.
5. Fluid: Movement is fluid and traffic flows foster interaction of people.
6. Flexible in time: Workspaces can be reserved on demand, employees can use third spaces.
7. Open: Workspaces form a hub to bring together various stakeholders (clients, employees, start-ups) and allow interaction and events organization.
8. Accessible: Accessibility is optimized by location close to public transport and use of multimodal equipment.
9. Circular: We will meet this word more and more often, not only in connection with the economy, but in terms of the functionality of a building or location. The building should be connected with the urban and environmental eco-system.
10. Reversible: Property is designed in such a way to allow transformation to other non-office uses such as residential, retail …
The reality is that the average area per employee is constantly decreasing. In addition, the number of companies (and not only new companies) who are not looking for classic offices is increasing heading straight towards coworking.
The fact that coworking has the potential for further development is illustrated by simple statistics. In 2018, coworking operators had a 10% share in new leases in Prague. In Warsaw it was 15% and in Brussels it was up to a fifth of all deals.
Agile offices also have a number of technological solutions and equipment in their DNA. This is usually customised ti the particular space and its tenants. However, we will discuss the theme of PropTech in another article.
