We’re all navigating an unprecedented global event. In an effort to help the coworking community, Liz Elam of GCUC, has connected with Jean-Yves Huwart of Coworking Europe and Jamie Russo of GWA to discuss the implications and offer insight surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.
How do you think the coworking industry will be affected by the coronavirus short term? Long term?
Jamie Russo: We think that in areas that are hardest-hit by the virus, consumers will start to evaluate a new criteria for coworking spaces – cleanliness. Coworking spaces may be forced by consumer demand (especially at the enterprise level) to up-level their cleaning procedures and frequency. Operators will likely need to find ways to signal these procedures to potential members. These signals may need to be incorporated into the search process, tour process and on-boarding process. We don’t think that the long-term answer is encouraging people to spend more time isolated at home but to find a way to mitigate the risks and get back to a more normal state of the world. In the short-term, the states in the U.S. that are hardest hit are reporting lower tour volume and lower daily attendance. However, some have reported increased meeting room rental as those with corporate offices that are off-limits are looking for alternative meeting places. Not everything can be done over Zoom.
Jean-Yves Huwart: The coworking industry is as severely impacted as any other. In Europe, we already are hearing stories about events and even meeting room booking cancellations. Employees of small or big organizations were the first to be recommended to homework as employers do not want to take risks. This is the same reason why corporate travel was the first to be canceled. The only coworking product not hit, it seems for now, is the virtual office, of course. Revenues will go down, no doubt about that, in the coming weeks. The key question now is: how long will the pandemic last and how hard is it going to hurt the economy? Some expect five weeks of confinement, then some months of slow recovery. Others bet on a ‘V’ shape kind of crisis, with a rapid economic reboot. The truth is that nobody knows. Everyone is looking at what is happening in Italy. On a longer-term, the main reason for hope for coworking is that lots of companies will have ultimately been forced to apply home working on a big scale. They might learn from the experience that people have no need to commute long hours in order to sit all day long next to one another in an HQ to be productive; nor that there is a need to keep them under a permanent watch to make sure they don’t procrastinate. Home working is often a step preceding the adoption of coworking, the best model for today’s distributed workforce.
Liz Elam: Things are so uncertain at the moment and changing every day. I do think we’ll see more people being sent home to work or quarantined. Short term this will hurt coworking until we better understand how coronavirus is spread. Long term it might actually be good. Companies and individuals will learn they can work from home. The risk is that people will be sent home to work and the loneliness epidemic will become worse than it already is. People need options and access to a collaborative environment is needed for success in life and work. In addition, companies will have to rethink their distributed work models and I believe this will also increase coworking space usage.
How can we help make workers feel safe in a coworking environment?
Liz Elam: This is a great question and the answer is complicated. We are missing lots of information about the spread of the disease. In the short term, placing cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer all over the place are a great way to start. This empowers the individual to address their work area. I’ve heard that many operators are increasing the frequency of cleaning in their space. Encourage those that have traveled internationally or are showing any symptoms to stay home. Be sure to let the community know how you are addressing it. Choose your words carefully.
Jamie Russo: As I said above, I think that shared workspace operators will start to become much more focused on cleaning procedures and communicating/signaling to members their efforts to maintain a clean environment. These efforts may come at an extra personnel cost for larger spaces. The reports we hear from operators are that they are supplying tools to help members keep their work areas clean (sanitizer where available and disinfectant wipes), but that members are not necessarily playing along. Staff (generally the Community Manager) is having to pick up the extra cleaning burden. We may also see some reduction in the densification of workspaces. For the operator, revenue per square foot is often a metric considered in the
design phase because it drives the financial sustainability of the space. But there may be some consumer backlash about the dense layouts of open spaces and even team offices.
Jean-Yves Huwart: Indeed. In our space, we have disinfection products in every room, so members can sanitize the tables or the door handle. We tripled the stock of hand soaps. No more kisses, hugs or handshakes. It’s a shoe shake or Namaste, instead. It’s fun and not too dramatic. Those are the basic recommendations governments are promoting in the media. It does a lot, already, to prevent further contamination. Isolation is hard to go through, especially for people who are not sick. So we could see people getting back in the coworking spaces next door after one or two weeks. China’s Starbucks are now re-opening, after all.