Day Hubs…’The Next Big Thing’ On The Horizon For Brand-Expanding BCs & Other Serviced Workspaces
Ray Lindenberg
Chief Innovation Officer at Winning Workspaces Hospitality Group
To further ‘E-X-P-A-N-D Your Brand To Meet Today’s Demand’…increase your appeal, market and revenue streams…and keep pace with the ever-evolving Age Of Aquarius of the Modern Workspacism Movement, there’s a new kid on the block to give some thought to. They’re called ‘Day Hubs’.
The list of offerings and wrinkles is spiking. Every day, something new seems to be popping up on the workplace/work-way menu. We’ve seen the Open Plan Touchdown Spacing demand splitting into two distinct markets…COworking and PROworking. We’ve seen fresh work categories sprout up such as Co-Op Room Shares, Cul De Sac Offices, and Duplex Offices. There are Work Pods; Apartment BCs; Use-My-Office-At-Home offerings; and Suburban Work-Hub BCs.
The Touchdown Space category has seen the greatest diversification with Hot-desks turning up in Malls, Service Stations, Highway Rest Stops, Hospital/Clinic Waiting Rooms, Day Care Centers…practically anywhere people congregate and wait…not to mention Coffee Shops and Libraries. For business travelers there’s an explosion of Airport and Hotel Business Lounges, plus Micro BCs at train and bus terminals to choose from.
The Modern Workspacism Movement has brought us the mega-trending one-two punch of Agile, Mobile and Distributed Working – plus the aforementioned Open Plan Working. People are signing up for Virtual Offices, Day Offices and Hourly Touchdown Spaces & Meeting Rooms in record numbers.
The Day Hub is a cross between an Open Plan Day Office, and a Conference Center offering, which itself is about to blast-off, coinciding with the increasing need for organizations that went to Agile, Mobile, Flexible, Teleworking and Distributed Working models, and thus will shrink or eliminate their Headquarters/Centrally Commuted Office (CCO) R/E footprints…but still have a pressing need to at least occasionally meet as a team at a space large enough that’s ready-made for them to arrive and get down to business for a day, week, or possibly longer.
Many organizations are or will be finding that even though they happily slashed their space needs and related major expenses, they still need to have their teams live-meet periodically. Even some of the most ardent Work-Life Balance favoring employees are beginning to feel left out, and perhaps overlooked or passed over for promotions when they’re spending too much time away from their bosses and teams. Results-Oriented Teleworking is great, but it works even better when it’s not exclusively ‘Remote Working’ – and colleagues can collaborate in each other’s presence, to brainstorm and bond with greater efficacy.
Much of human communication is non-verbal. Enhanced tele and video-conferencing capabilities will only get you so far. Spontaneous, free-flowing and serendipitous, in-person collaborations are priceless. New and existing relationships can be reinforced more effectively when productive interruptions are encouraged.
Day Hubs are a variation of Conference Centering – when what the work team needs to do is more than just meet. A Day Hub is a large team room that can be temporarily used as a COworking or PROworking Space – offering Plug-N-Go ready tables/work stations, and with the room designed to be instantly turn into a Meeting Space of need be. It’s designed to seamlessly bring a team back together side-by-side to recreate the synergy – that organizations which reduce or eliminate CCOs can turn to for a cost-effective way to satisfy its newfound collaborative working needs.
To monetize this growing demand and get into the Conference Room/Day Hub hybrid market, Serviced Workspace Operators may need to add larger team room designs into their mix of offerings, and for maximum efficiency/ROI, should consider sliding walls to accommodate different sized Team Room requests.
Day Hubs…what’ll they think of next?