Trends and developments within coworking spaces

Because of Thom Wernke's visit to Coworking London, we would like to share the most important trends and developments with you within the coworking market. Now that the dust of the corona pandemic has settled, we see what consequences this has for the coworking market.

1. A 'Market Shake' in the commercial real estate market

The world of commercial real estate is changing. Due to the pandemic, employees of large corporations now spend much less time in the office than before. Before corona, five days a week was a reasonable standard, after corona +/-three days a week is the new normal. The rest of the time we work from home, in a coworking space close to home (to reduce travel time), in a café / coffee shop or elsewhere. We call this phenomenon 'hybrid working'. Hybrid working causes corporations to divest their real estate because they only actually use half of their real estate. It is expected that many companies will therefore reduce their square shares of office space in the coming years.

2. Coworking is not only for the entrepreneur anymore

Because employees do not only work from the office, there is much more demand from the employees to facilitate other workplaces outside of the office. On-demand workspace parties such as Coworker, Desana, Upflex and Croissant respond to this by selling "all workplace passes" to companies. These ensure that corporate employees can work from any coworking space in the world. So: What OneFit/ClassPass are for gyms, these companies are the facilitators for coworking. These clubs are growing very fast now, with absurd investment rounds.
ABN AMRO has also cleverly responded to this by starting up Green Desk. This allows employees of companies to go to coworking spaces near the employees, for example at one of the StartDock locations.

3. Five stars for StartDock

Another trend has come over from the hotel industry, namely the "star rating". The expectation is that this system will be introduced to the market this year or next year. This method will give stars to coworking companies from Coworking Europe so that a solid quality assessment takes place. StartDock is therefore going for the Michelin Star under coworking spaces.

4. Making an impact is something you do together

Already on April 12 of this year, it was 'Earth Overshoot day' in The Netherlands and that is disturbing. From coworking spaces and from our customers, it is becoming more and more a necessity to do something about this. Each country now has 1 or 2 frontrunners working on impact certificates such as GRI, WELL and B corp (for renting coworking concepts) or BREEAM and LEED (for building owners). We are also working on making our business operations more sustainable. For example, together with Move to Impact, we are working on obtaining the B Corp certificate and we are doing everything we can to reduce our CO2 footprint.

5. StartDock, the McDonalds of the coworking world?

That may well be the case in the future. More and more coworking concepts are launching a franchise formula to accelerate the growth of their concept. For a franchisee, there are several advantages, for example, that the concept has already proved successful in other locations. There are also advantages for the franchisor, such as accelerated growth and fewer (initial) investment costs. There are only a few companies within the coworking industry that apply this concept, it is expected that there will be more and more in the coming years.

6. Facilitate employee well-being

Coworking spaces facilitate workplaces for employees. Often coworking spaces are 'cool workplaces', but to make it a good workplace, steps are needed. In the coming years, coworking spaces will have to look at air quality, proper lighting, ergonomic furniture and well-being. Organizations already do this in their own offices and it is only logical that they also want this for the other workplaces of their employees.

The coworking market is changing rapidly, in addition, the pandemic has caused a change in target group. It is now time to keep up with the trends and developments so that the coworking space remains attractive for anyone who is looking for another workplace. With StartDock we actively work daily, with the entire team, to improve our coworking spaces. Do you want to join the conversation or read more about the future of coworking? read this article by our partners Flexas.com or contact thom@startdock.nl