(Toronto) The rise of remote and hybrid working has made it harder to justify a full office. That’s why more and more companies are relying on shared workspaces for convenience and to save money. This choice, however, comes at the expense of confidentiality and control.
Some entrepreneurs in the world of design have adopted a unique approach: co-location.
Although Ian Chalmers, director of Pivot Design Group, and Peter Scott, director of Q30 Design, work for somewhat competing companies, they teamed up to find a space to share that could meet the expectations of their designer eyes, but which wouldn’t stay empty half the time either. The two companies swap days so they’re not in the office at the same time.
“You don’t need a full-time office, meeting rooms, all that overhead, so the idea really resonated and seemed like a great approach to us,” Mr Chalmers said.
It may seem surprising that it is difficult to find an office given the headlines reporting a significantly higher vacancy rate. However, much of the empty space is concentrated in low-end buildings past their prime, while the top-rated offerings are still more expensive.
In downtown Vancouver, the highest rent class was $46.38 per square foot last quarter and $35.39 in Toronto, according to CBRE. Nationally, the average Class A downtown rent was $29.24, down slightly from $29.79 a year earlier.
Q30’s Mr. Scott began his research a few years ago when he was facing rising rent at his longtime office just west of downtown Toronto.
That’s when he and Mr. Chalmers decided to team up in their research. Together, they found a place for their combined teams of about 22 people with 15-foot ceilings, large wooden beams, and polished floors that left plenty of flexibility to make it their own.
It wasn’t just cost savings that motivated them, they said. The potential for a larger community is also an attraction.
“Our team would feel like they are part of a bigger whole.” There might be some sharing, there might be at least some stories, you know, you’re not alone,” Chalmers said.
It was also helpful to learn about the different ways of running a business, and for Mr Scott it was nice to have someone to vent with after buying out his partner’s shares and running the business. solo venture for the first time.
“Ian and I were already comfortable sharing, you know, entrepreneurial war stories and business growth and the good and the bad of it all. »
This option is still quite rare, in part because it requires a certain degree of coordination and compromise.
At first, the two were just happy to bring employees back to the studio and everyone came whenever they wanted. But, they have since grown up and had to formalize their main days in the office, Monday and Wednesday for one company, and Tuesday and Thursday for the other.
Some people are still allowed to come in outside of office days, but the schedule keeps the office from being crowded.
They have also gone through the formality of non-disclosure agreements and must be sure to clear whiteboards of anything sensitive, although this remains more private than a frequently shared space like those offered by the company WeWork.
They also had to agree on how to brand the space, which they simply decided not to do. They kept it fairly neutral and instead added a touch of style with murals as well as fun designs, like a felt floral arrangement on the meeting room ceiling that doubles as a sound absorber.
The two signed a five-and-a-half-year lease, so they’re committed to the long term, and so far things are going well, Mr. Chalmers said.
The need for personal navigation, without any company being responsible for the space, partly explains why this type of navigation is relatively rare.
A CBRE survey found that only 13% of U.S. companies would be interested in co-location, a figure that fell to 6% in Asia. Canadian companies were not surveyed.
However, efforts are being made to speed it up. A San Francisco startup called Tandem is trying to make matchmaking easier by creating a larger pool of possibilities, a kind of online dating service for office sharing, but so far it’s limited to a few U.S. cities.