LATAM coworking: 15 keys to understanding its reinvention

Apart from daily life, education, food, sports, politics and economics, work spaces entered a stage of reinvention against Coronavirus.

The Latin America region, with extraordinary potential in ideas, is no stranger to the movement.In the region, the flexible memberships of entrepreneurs, freelancers and freelancers were practically collapsed to almost zero in the coworking market.

Next, we present fifteen ideas that are implemented in the region.The ideas have to do with the new spaces in hotels, small and medium enterprises, spaces to reinvent the collaborator, the mergers of the big brands and their assignments, to the need and the suspicion for returning to the office.Latin America is a laboratory of ideas and entrepreneurship, which with pandemia live a revolution that could well influence other parts of the world.

1.- Skeleton and City As Campus phenomena."In the region they win two trends.On the one hand, the Skeleton Staffing: Companies that implemented three days of office and two teleworking, two shifts (morning and afternoon) and staff rotations per weeks.On the other hand, the Pity As a Campus phenomenon: companies that are rethinking the locations of their central offices and creating a distributed workforce to reduce trips, preserving the connection and organizational culture, "says Tomás Calusio, director of Wework Argentina.

2.- Hub and Spoke.The implementation of this model is presented when a company maintains a main headquarters and manages satellite offices at different points.According to a CBRE report, 86% of companies expect to use flexible spaces as part of their future real estate strategies.For its part, JLL expects that at least 30% of the offices worldwide are flexible in 2030.

3.- Cede, not to disappear.The iconic Wework in the LATAM region faced the crisis with the transfer of spaces, as lived in Argentina, specifically in Buenos Aires, by terminating income contracts in the Bellini Tower, in the Retiro neighborhood, in the buildingof Blas Parera 51, in Florida, added to the delivery of 20 floors of the 30 he occupied in the Odeón Torre.

For the operation, which took place at six months of the start of the world crisis, Wework acknowledged that COVID-19 introduced questions about the long-term viability of some businesses, where "the flexible space model is no stranger to these questions".In Argentina, the firm had 4,000 clients, including companies, entrepreneurs and independent professionals and from them, 74% of its occupation corresponded to multinational firms.

4.- Over new schemes: hotels with coworking.Even in the middle of the world crisis and concern, there were those who moved.For example, the opening of the hotels to Cowork Spaces, was the next stage of the RecoletFor companies and entrepreneurs, ”said Ian Valerio, general manager of that unit.

5.- Fusion with large brands. Apenas en este mes, Cushman & Wakefield dio a conocer una estrategia con WeWork , proveedor líder de flexs spaces corporativos.Cushman seeks to take advantage of the hybrid strategies of the work space. Esta asociación busca combinar la plataforma patentada de WeWork de software de gestión de experiencia en el espacio de trabajo y la experiencia como ocupante con los servicios de gestión de activos e instalaciones líderes en la industria de Cushman & Wakefield."Together, we will unlock opportunities for owners and companies to create a differentiated work experience for tenants and employees to have a flexible space operational platform".

6.- Investment to incubate ideas. Además, Cushman & Wakefield dio a conocer una posible inversión estratégica de fifteen0 millones de dólares con la que se crearía una incubadora de ideas para regenerarexperiencias de acuerdo al expertise de WeWork: creación y administración de espacios flexibles atractivos y funcionales, con servicios convenientes para apoyar a una fuerza laboral comprometida, con acceso a tecnología, con datos e información de vanguardia de WeWork que respaldan la experiencia de los inquilinos.

7.- Record it: the new name of the game is called adaptation.“We have learned that many of us have to live and work in the same place, maybe not every day and for this, we had to prepare homes.This represented an opportunity for coliving.Overnight we become Digital-Nomads, in those professionals who use new technologies to work and carry out a nomadic lifestyle;The Headquarter are not going to die, there is forge the culture of the company, there the employees intersect in the halls and seek to chat, even with covers, ”said Martín Larre, director of Sinenergia Co-Working and General Managerfrom Zag Coliving in Montevideo, in Uruguay.

8.- Hotels with Siestiaries and Sports.The concept of Sheraton Premium Offices, which will begin in October in the region, offers three new coworking office spaces with private offices, dedicated (individual) desks in common spaces, meetings rooms with technology for virtual and hybrid meetings (up to fivepeople), cafeteria, “Facebooth (closed and soundproof space, for those who hired desks can speak privacy) and, one of them, includes even a siesario, to rest in a time of workplace pause.These services are hired per day, week, fortnight or month, and include laundry, tennis court, gastronomy, free parking promotions and additional discounts.

9.- Hotels with streaming to make conferences ... and concerts.Through the Sheraton Studio Arena, in the San Telmo Hall of the Hote in Argentina, for example, an area of that hotel was reconditioned as a television studio to do streaming seminars or music concerts to reach 1,500 via online."In August we started with the first event and already five closed, as a seminar in charge of specialists and the presentation of Business Plan of a company," said Andrés Hasedeu, sales director of Sheraton Buenos Aires and Park Tower.

10.- Colombia and satellite offices.When the pandemic broke up, Cowork in Colombia was shocked with the end of the firm Owlo and with Wework and Tinkko reducing inventory.According to JLL, three companies currently dominate the market: Wework, Tinkko and Regus/Spaces.Tinkko is the only place, with Wework attending 81% of the flexible space market.At the first semester of 2021, Cowork reached 28 operating centers with 124,100 m2, with Bogotá leading the inventory with 64%.In that country, flexible spaces have been opened in decentralized areas to meet the demand for the recent Flight-To-Flex phenomenon (migration to flexible spaces) through the so-called satellite offices.

eleven.- If you don't come to the office, yes involcrate."We will see an evolution.The bad we are becoming positive.The spaces are going to react because human beings are going to design different.Users evolved, demand and need different things.Are you going to want to come a couple of times a week to the office?Okay, those days will play certain activities to take advantage of the fact that you are here.Do not you want or cannot come to the office?It also uses.We must consider how we will have connectivity and interaction with the collaborators;That's where technology will play a preponderant role.This is an example of how users will adapt to the new offices, to those itinerant, flexible, highly technified spaces and yes, more and more ventilated, ”said Alberto Laris, director of Strategic Development of Gaya.

12.- Urban geographies do affect coworking.“The entire Covid-19 episode caused the acceleration of the disruptions that were ongoing.What left us - and that is relevant because it is what is going to remain - is that the veils that prevented us from seeing the changes that were present in the conformation of the cities fell.Pandemia consolidated the new urban geographies, the possibility of digitalization to live and work differently, as well as the activation of interfaces that allow the interrelation between neighborhoods and cities: all this to be capitalized towards the construction of a higher quality of life and betterSustainable cities over time, ”says Marcelo Satulovsky, consultant, teacher and researcher in Urban Development and Real Estate in Argentina.

13.- SMEs, have you already guessed the new model?“We, being an SME, we are focused 100% to our market;If you compare these large, international companies that come to put the spaces, they are very focused on transnationals and forget about SMEs.But their requirements are not so special and sometimes do not need this super corporate image.What they need is to have a professional, impeccable space, with excellent service, with all anti-covid-19 measures to function.The vast majority of Mexican SMEs does not need a cowork;You need an office to work, between private and perhaps, Cowork, which is a upward demand. Las pymes actualmente necesitan un precio justo y que puedan pagar sin afectar su crecimiento”, afirma Cati Cerda, directora adjunta de Sach, en plática con Real Estate Market & Lifestyle.

Sach, by the way, with his model, managed to open two spaces during the pandemic crisis, with 64% occupancy levels.SMEs need spaces with everything already mounted and conditioned, so that the client I have nothing to adapt in Capex, in addition to flexibility and ending shorts.That they are space with hand by hand, with spaces and everything, adds.

14.- Differentiate customers and areas.Currently, corporate space owners need a redesign of their layout, Cati Cerda continues, so “we evaluate how the floor is and the capex is shared and it is about saving what can be most.We design the layout, for example.We know that in the Countess they demand more cowork, and south of the CDMX demand more private offices.We advise to put the right amount per corridor and client.“It is not the same interloma client or one who is on Hamburg street.Here you need team officers with back office.We try to reduce capex to make it a business center ”.

fifteen.- Need for Brain Zones and War Rooms.These are spaces with terraces or spaces with more air looking for SMEs.War rooms are currently needed, and spaces with brainstorming, “if you were in the house in a very cozy place, in the offices it is necessary that these spaces be implemented, so that the collaborator relates or read a book and create environments that are notas rigid as offices.

With information from Argentina's chronicler, Wework, Portfolio de Colombia, 3rd Congress of Real Estate and Real Estate Investments of Expo Estate México Virtual and Interview with Cati Cerda, CEO of Sach.