Location agnostic, smaller offices: Future of workspace?

Kamal Karanth, co-founder of specialist staffing firm Xpheno is a happy entrepreneur after giving up 7,000 square feet of total office space in Bengaluru.

Giving up office space was earlier seen as an indication of business de-growth. But Karanth asserts that he has grown and giving up space has brought about several benefits. The infra and office operation cost has become zero, employees are happy and working from wherever they are based in, and he has accepted a new reality that is emerging in the workspace – location agnostic offices.

With the country witnessing a third wave of the pandemic, and companies becoming cost conscious in terms of infra requirements, future of workspace is going to be location agnostic at least in parts. Industry insiders, HR services firms and consultants believe that smaller hubs instead of massive centralised workspace will emerge as a new reality.

So work from home, hybrid work culture and location agnostic workspace will go hand-in-hand, and complement each other. But some experts also argue that workforce that needs a strong team work would like to be in office than work from home in the medium to long term.

“The focus has shifted from office attendance to productive work. And location, big offices are no more a must have to operate for several companies. Corporate clients are telling us that it is gradually getting acceptance. Shared offices, small offices instead of large centralised office as a trend will see increasing acceptance,” said T. Muralidharan, chairman of Hyderabad based TMI Network, a talent, training and HR service firm.

Muralidharan himself has given up over 70% of his office space in Hyderabad and embracing shared offices. He has allowed 300 plus of his colleagues to operate from home or shared spaces. It has its side-effects, but the benefit outweighs the challenges, he asserted.

“I believe companies are now thinking, instead of having a huge centralized office, can we have offices in tier two or tier three cities. For example, instead of a massive office in Bangalore, companies, at least some are exploring, if it is a better idea to have smaller hubs in places where required talents are available,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, executive vice president of Teamlease Service, a staffing company.

“Going forward you may see IT and IT enabled firms opening smaller offices, let’s say in places like Durgapur (West Bengal), Meerut (Uttar Pradesh), Jaipur, Jamshedpur and places from where corporates can expect a steady flow of talents,” Chakraborty added. She said a lot of talent have gone back home due to the pandemic, and working closer to home will be a better option.

Location-agnostic working goes hand-in-hand with this, especially for tech companies with large workforces, according to Monster.com, part of Quess Corp. “With a number of employees preferring remote working and staying in their hometowns, more and more organisations are considering setting up smaller offices in Tier-2 cities or utilizing co-working spaces to provide employees with better resources and access to technology,” said the job board in a recent report adding that this would lead to an increased demand to hire across tier-2 cities in the coming months.

“The future of work is location-agnostic and hybrid, with increased skilling initiatives being undertaken by both employers and employees. Further, leading tech-enabled industries such as IT, FinTech, BFSI, and crypto will continue to flourish with talent demand spikes. It is also interesting to note that employee flexibility would be critical towards retaining talent in the future,” said Sekhar Garisa, chief executive officer of Monster.com, a Quess company in the report.

Karanth said companies, with whom his firm is working, have accepted the fact that employees are looking to work remotely or may be willing to come to office for a couple days in a week. “The preference is clear – work from home, hybrid and operate closer to home,” he said.

Muralidharan said companies who have got subsidized land while building big offices earlier will find it difficult to adopt the new trend. However, small and mid-sized service sector firms will gradually transition to accept it to stay agile, light footed and productive. “5G and good broadband connection will aid this growth in future,” he explained adding that the new culture is improving office documentation.

Side Effects

Location agnostic work culture, as well as work from home, some argue, may not last beyond six months. One view is that it impacts team performance, and many unexplored aspects of prolonged work from home could be a burden on the mental health. It is also believed that front-end work like sales and marketing are best done by being on the field.

“Location agnostic workspace has its limitations. While task centric jobs or freelance work generally would not have issues with location agnostic phenomenon, full time work that needs a strong team work will not adhere to it in the medium to long term,” Anandorup Ghosh, partner (human capital consulting) at Deloitte.

San Banerjee, co-founder and chief executive of ADDA, an apartment society management software firm said remote working has improved “processes and documentation, as people no longer can walk over to that person and ask”, however, there is a negative impact in terms of “slowdown in innovative initiatives that often germinate from chance discussions between cross functional teams”.