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<\/a><\/p>\nThe dedicated offices can accommodate from around 20 to 85 workstations and include specialised areas such as meeting rooms and concentration spaces.<\/p>\n
WorkAgility will be available at six buildings with multiple options each in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Growthpoint\u2019s first work WorkAgility office is Newlands on Main in Cape Town, which is available immediately.<\/p>\n
Growthpoint intends to expand the WorkAgility concept in line with demand. As South Africa\u2019s largest real estate investment trust (REIT), with property assets nationwide, Growthpoint has the singular ability to roll out this ready-to-occupy integrated office concept in almost every key business area in the country, especially in the major metropolitan cities.<\/p>\n
Back to the office<\/strong><\/p>\n A new global research report by Steelcase, a global office design company, surveyed 58,000 people in 11 countries on what it would take to lure them back to the office has revealed some surprising answers.<\/p>\n Linda Trim, director at workspace design consultancy Giant Leap which represents Steelcase in South Africa said: \u201cFor every CEO you hear from who loves their new, remote or hybrid setup, you hear from five who don\u2019t. For many who sent their people home, it\u2019s proving tough to get them back.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBusinesses need to think differently about getting people back into the office. They need to think of it as earning the commute of workers who would rather stay home.\u201d<\/p>\n So what do people say they want when they go back to the office?<\/p>\n They want different things\u2014based on age<\/strong>. \u201cWhat we find is people who are under 30 years old are more likely to be in the office because they\u2019re looking to create social connections and want to advance their careers,\u201d said Trim.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who are older than 50 are often back in the office because that\u2019s what they were used to. But you see a big swathe of people in between\u2014that 30 to 50 group\u2014that are really enjoying working at home. They have to be carefully managed.\u201d<\/p>\n They want hybrid meetings to not suck<\/strong>. \u201cWe\u2019re thinking more like a movie director than facility manager in designing offices now,\u201d said Trim. \u201cIn the past facility managers might just have video call facilities in a big vacuous room with poor acoustics and poor lighting.<\/p>\n “Now that experience has to be engaging. And it has to be easy to use, otherwise, people won\u2019t do it. Workers don\u2019t want to feel like they\u2019re the odd person out based on where they are working.\u201d<\/p>\n They want to concentrate<\/strong>. \u201cPeople are primarily concerned with the ability to work without distraction,\u201d said Trim. \u201cOne of the things they really appreciated being at home during the pandemic was the ability to focus. So they want an equal amount of acoustic and psychological privacy to what they had at home.\u201d<\/p>\n They want to collaborate<\/strong>. People like to connect with colleagues, so how do we help facilitate some of those connections? Said Trim: \u201cWhat we see is a proliferation of meeting room spaces, as well as ancillary informal settings, throughout the floor area. They used to be maybe 30% of the floor area pre-pandemic, we see a big shift to probably 50% to 60% or 70% in many offices now.\u201d<\/p>\n They want social support<\/strong>. \u201cWhat the 30-to-50-year-olds group are also telling us in the research is that they’re really struggling with things like child care and elder care in their work-life balance,\u201d said Trim.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the top things from our research came from women and their need for childcare on-site or someplace that they could get to quickly. Other on-site services like dry cleaning are in demand.\u201d<\/p>\n They want a decent boss<\/strong>. You can have a beautifully designed space, but if the culture isn\u2019t great, that will also be a detractor from people coming back to work. \u201cPeople who say they want to work from home are often really saying that they don\u2019t like their boss or their work culture,\u201d Trim concluded.<\/p>\n
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