The Covid-19 pandemic has been the largest labor experiment that workers and employers have ever experienced.
The emptying of companies and the establishment of teleworking have caused a reflection in the sector on the future of workspaces.
"There is a lot of talk about the disappearance of the offices but I think that will not happen for a simple reason: let's think about the people who enter a company new, have to learn from those who are and that learning is impossible from home."
This is how the architect Enrique Álvarez-Sala, author of such recognizable and award-winning office buildings as the PWC Tower on Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid or Indra's headquarters in Alcobendas (Madrid), reflects on the future of the workplace.
Álvarez-Sala believes that this crisis will bring about a transformation in the professional space because the way people work has also changed: “Before, clients asked us for offices to have meeting rooms and now they ask for open-air spaces.
Everything is more informal, we can meet on a terrace and that productivity is the same as in a room.
We are not going to build differently, but we are going to take advantage of spaces that previously went unnoticed. "The architect, a direct witness to the changes that have occurred in workplaces for decades, cites as an example the Los Cubos building, an iconic construction of offices in Madrid's M-30 from the 70s, signed by the French studio Chapman Taylor, whose roofs have been converted into terraces and outdoor meeting places in the recent building renovation (2020).
Olivier Crambade, CEO of the developer Therus, explains that the reform of Los Cubos wanted to unite the leisure and work spaces, making the office a more pleasant place: “Now there is more space, it is brighter and more comfortable.
It is about putting people at the center of the offices and not the other way around, humanizing the workplace ”.
Crambade expects the real estate market to recover in 2021 and believes that this recovery will be faster in those buildings that offer something different than what existed before the arrival of the pandemic.
"We must start a transformation, the Madrid office park needs an 80% renovation," says the developer.
The reinvention of
coworking
The transformation of workspaces was already underway in recent years.
Proof of this was the rise of 'coworkings', shared workspaces that are more flexible and cost less than traditional office buildings.
These characteristics, together with the unstoppable use of technology at work, can play in favor of this sector, which in 2019 had 28,000 permanent and 13,000 flexible positions, according to the coworkingspain.es platform.
Antonio González, CEO of Impact Hub Madrid, believes that the key to the survival of coworking is to accompany the worker in this transformation: “We are on the one hand focusing on the organization of hybrid digital events, developing platforms and spaces where they can be held and, On the other hand, we are getting clients who want to leave the office to save costs due to the impact of Covid on their business. "González sees the future of the employee in multiple workspaces at the same time." In a week we may change several times workplace but I believe that in no case will teleworking be perpetuated, because
engagement
(commitment) with the company
ends up being lost
", affirms the CEO. A recent survey, carried out by the real estate agency Savills-Aguirre Newman, affirms that more than 85 % of employees want a mixed model between teleworking and going back to the office.
Among so much uncertainty, experts only cite one certainty: we will not return to the factory model of office inherited from the 19th century, the one that the American director Billy Wilder showed us in 'The Apartment' (1960), where employees came and went to the same time from a single space.
