Corpoworking: when unoccupied spaces are optimized

Coworking , coliving … These names for shared spaces have entered our daily language. Among those less known to the general public, corpoworking is a new popular trend in office buildings.

Already adopted by Coca-Cola and Google, corpoworking aims to bring new life to unoccupied spaces by reproducing the codes of coworking within companies. Thus, they can make available to their employees but also to partner companies, shared workspaces where new work codes are emerging. Light on this new phenomenon.

In a few words, what is corpoworking?

Corpoworking is a new conception of space management in office buildings, born from the effervescence of coworking spaces and the advent of startups. Transparency, flexibility, collaboration  : the new management methods in these agile structures have generated new expectations on the part of workers. The creation of shared workspaces has particularly aroused the interest of workers, so much so that even large groups have started to adopt this trend.

Concretely, corpoworking is the effigy of the coworking model: the big difference, however, is that this new management of space takes place within companies (initially organized in a more "traditional" way with private spaces and little flexibility) and not in dedicated places . Corpoworking then offers a new work dynamic between employees and external workers.

The Covid-19 health crisis has also accelerated the trend: teleworking has freed up many places in offices, thus serving as spaces to rent / lend to external companies or start-ups in search of a spirit of sharing. This is the case of Accenture or Mobivia , which transform these unused square meters into a third place, welcoming start-ups, events and even sometimes ephemeral exhibitions.

What does a corporate corpoworking space look like?
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Like coworking, corpoworking combines shared spaces and workspaces. Thus, there are shared workspaces with flexible workstations, meeting rooms available for reservation and relaxation or catering areas. In addition, there are many services accessible to all as well as a strong community dynamic (events, exchange portal, etc.).

Why is corporate working so popular?

By redeveloping business premises and offering more flexibility, meeting spaces, places dedicated to experimentation, as well as a wide range of activities, the creation of corpoworking spaces is on the rise. … And the figures speak! According to a study conducted by the IWG (International Workplace Group), 75% of global respondents considered that a shared workspace had become a “normal” working condition.

On the business side, nothing to lose, therefore, in transforming part of their m2 into a corpoworking space… quite the contrary! Here are some benefits of corporateworking that reinforce this view:

• An environment vector of collaborations , thanks to the friendly spaces arranged for the collaborators and the external partners.
• A qualitative employer brand, where the formal plan of the office will be replaced by an image of "nomadic", modern and service-based work.
• Profitable spaces: a plan for optimizing places and reducing fixed costs, renting or lending free spaces will give rise to new projects between new players.

The new challenge of corpoworking

Corpoworking responds to the need, even more present since the health crisis, to optimize the management of office space. But it also offers a new challenge to the real estate teams of large groups: that of having to manage – directly – shared spaces.

A new profession that requires time and potentially money: welcoming visitors to the site, managing shared spaces, monitoring incidents, leading the community of occupants, etc.

However, turnkey solutions exist to facilitate the implementation of a corpoworking offer in a building:

• The integration of a corpoworking operator, such as Dynamic Workplace.
• The implementation of a platform dedicated to the occupant experience and the optimization of the management of corpoworking spaces, such as Witco

With an increase in telework expected until at least 2030 and an explosion of flexible and shared spaces, corpoworking looks promising... By embarking on the adventure, will companies be able to meet the challenge by offering corpoworking spaces? satisfactory for their employees and partners?

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