Co-Working Spaces – Where we Work vs. Where we Want to Work

Posted On December 9, 2018

What will the office of the future look like? Will it feature the open-concept floor plans that are the current rage? Are cubicles gone for good? Or will we even work in offices at all?

The future isn’t easy to predict – if it was, sports books and insurance companies would go out of business. But the trends we see in today’s workplaces may give us a good idea of what’s to come.

Our guest in a recent episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” Mobile-based developer Taylor Atchison, shares his thoughts about current trends in workspaces and what they may tell us about what to expect in the future.

One emerging trend is co-working spaces, where businesses, entrepreneurs or individual employees can rent space or simply become a member and use common areas. It’s a concept that offers a middle ground between the expense of maintaining a traditional office building and the isolation of working from home.

“It’s very flexible, especially for start-ups,” Atchison says, noting that having many different types of people working at different types of businesses under one roof can be a boost to creativity. “Normally they would be at their kitchen counter in their house, staring at their laundry that they should be doing, or may end up doing instead of working, as opposed to the energy you get around other people working and how you can feed off that.”

That human interaction is a key to the thinking behind today’s workspaces, Atchison says. Offices are being designed to force employees to interact and encourage collaboration. Long tables have replaced cubicles. Kitchenettes and coffee bars are strategically placed to encourage conversation. And everything is adaptable, so companies can convert their space to fit their needs.

Speaking of adaptation, converted spaces are also popular, as companies take advantage of historic tax credits to renovate once-abandoned car dealerships and warehouses into workspaces to fit their needs. This is spurring a resurgence of downtown areas in many Southeastern cities, with companies using the convenience of a downtown address and the proximity to restaurants, nightlife and other amenities as a selling point for attracting employees.

Atchison also tells us what the problem was with cubicles, discusses whether these current trends are age-specific to millennials or are more cross-generational, shares the small changes businesses tied to a current building can make to improve their workspace, and tell us why bigger isn’t necessarily better.

Join us for an engaging discussion about where we work, and where we want to work.

Categories: What's Working with Cam Marston, Workplace