The Spaces That Shape Us
Join us as we explore the profound impact of physical spaces on individuals' lives. Through interviews and expert panels, we unveil the secrets of designing spaces that shape emotions, boost productivity, and enhance overall well-being. Discover the latest trends, innovative designs, and strategies for creating inspiring work environments that foster collaboration, engagement, and work-life balance.
The Spaces That Shape Us
Shaping the Future: The Evolution and Impact of Modern Work and Learning Spaces
Welcome to The Spaces That Shape Us. In this episode we explore the invisible yet powerful impact of space on our lives. We're thrilled to have Lisa McLeod, Head of Design at AW Spaces, and Caleb Holding, Co-Founder and Project Director at AW Spaces, as our guides. They share intricate insights on how various environments, from tranquil gardens to vibrant markets, can influence our emotions, interactions and life stories. Engage with us as we traverse the fascinating narratives behind the staggering 90,000 hours we invest at work, and the 20,000 hours children devote to learning in classrooms.
Grit and resilience stir the air as we weave through the aftermath of the pandemic, and the extraordinary recovery of businesses in 2021 and 2022. We'll shed light on the crucial role office spaces play in manifesting a team's morale, culture and unique personality - and the pivotal shift observed in investing in design. Hear the story of how office spaces evolved amidst the pandemic, with increased participation from founders, owners and directors in the design process - a testament to their newfound respect for time and the significance of nurturing their workspace.
Looking into the future, we envision the evolving needs of different sectors in terms of office space design. Traditional sectors like law firms to creative agencies, each with their unique challenges and aspirations. We explore the impact of remote learning on younger generations and their comfort with remote work. Embrace a thought-provoking discourse on the future of education and workspaces - the rise in self-directed learning and the surreal possibilities the metaverse offers the workspace. Join us on this enlightening exploration of the power and future of spaces.
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If you're pondering how to optimize your team's performance and workspace, reach out to one of our workplace strategists at AW Spaces.
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Welcome to the Spaces that Shape Us. Today and in all the episodes that follow, we delve into the topic that silently yet profoundly influences our everyday lives space. But why is space? Why is it so significant to our lives, our well-being and our stories? Each day, consciously or not, we navigate a myriad of spaces, from the rooms in our homes to public squares, from intimate corners to vast landscapes. These spaces do more than just contain us. They shape our moods, our behaviours, our interactions and our very understanding of the world. Think of the serenity you feel in a quiet garden, the rush in a bustling market or the contemplation within the walls of a museum.
Speaker 1:Space holds incredible power, a silent narrative that intertwines with our own personal stories. Our environments can inspire creativity, foster relationships, provide solace or even challenge our perceptions. Designers weave these stories, aspirations and societal needs into a physical form, giving birth to spaces that, in return, shape society. By discussing an understanding space, we're not just talking about structures or aesthetics. We're exploring a deeper human experience, one that echoes our desires, reflects our history and sets the stage for our future. Join us today as we unravel the tales behind the walls, the ideas behind the offices and the emotions that open spaces evoke Together, let's discover the stories behind the spaces that shape us. I am very excited to introduce our first guest today, lisa McLeod, who is our Head of Design at AW Spaces Hi, hi, lisa, welcome. And Kayla Paulding, who is Co-Founder and Project Director at AW Spaces.
Speaker 2:Hi Holly, Great to be on board today.
Speaker 1:Great to have you here. This particular episode is going to be about Workspace. We all work for AW Spaces. We create Workspaces and Educational Spaces. My name is Holly, I am Head of Brand and Marketing at AW Spaces. And just to kick off, Kayla Lisa, how many hours do you think we spend at work in a whole lifetime?
Speaker 2:I'm going to go with 100,000.
Speaker 3:87,000.
Speaker 1:You're really good. It's 90,000. Oh yeah, that was closer.
Speaker 2:Lisa wins 90,000 hours.
Speaker 3:What do?
Speaker 1:I win. I haven't decided yet. You can come back. Thanks, 90,000 hours Wow.
Speaker 3:That is a lot, isn't it? It's many.
Speaker 1:And children spend 20,000 hours in a classroom.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:So that's why AW Spaces is so important to design.
Speaker 3:That's what it's all about exactly. Yeah, it would be interesting if that was based on the old model of the five days a week, everyone in the office, or if it's taken into account the new hybrid way of working, so that could be your home hours as well.
Speaker 1:So, lisa, over to you. Could you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, your journey, before arriving at this point in your career?
Speaker 3:Sure, I studied at Brighton University which is where I also live because it's a great place and I graduated in 2008. And since then I've worked in various architectural practices. So I did some sustainable residential developments for a year, and then I moved on to exhibition design for a year as a sort of student and eventually arriving at a company called Woods Baggett, who are a large architectural practice. I was on their interior design team and worked mainly on workspace but also did some residential and some hotels. And since then, I mean I spent five years there doing drawing work and building myself up. And then, nine years ago now, 2015?
Speaker 3:14, I think it was, yeah, 14,. That would make nine years. So where am I? So I started at AW 2014. And since then, I've noticed a huge shift in how spaces are designed and what people are putting into spaces, and how space has changed in terms of densities and flexibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what are some pivotal moments in your life that's influenced your passion for design and space.
Speaker 3:I think a really pivotal one was definitely the year I spent doing sustainable residential design, because that architecture practice was. They were so passionate about it and genuinely passionate about it. It wasn't what people call greenwash. So I learned a lot of really interesting things about materials, off-gassing of materials, how you can shape the landscape to like work with a house that you're designing, how spaces work with the sun and how they move around, and how you can harness heat and heat gain from materials. So lots of interesting stuff like that which I think I try to weave into everyday life and try to stay focused a little bit on the materials I choose for spaces.
Speaker 1:Thank you and Caleb.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess just to give you the background to my interest in life. So my Danish grandfather and great-grandfather were artists, they were painters, and then my English grandfather was an architect. So there's this kind of definitely a creative upbringing and then my father and uncle had a building business.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of through my life there's been this creative verging with construction, which is a designer build wasn't a thing I don't think when I was born in the 90s, but it was definitely the first it was definitely, I'm sure, Maris or someone else had started it before that, but so I left school at 16 and set up a designer build company with my father and two brothers, taking them from the construction background that they've been doing into a bit more of a creative world. And then in 20 years, in 2012, merged Lime, which was my business, with Ivan, my cousin, in Burgess Hill, to create actual workspace. And then in 2020, we rebranded to AW Spaces and I think 2020 was probably the start of quite an interesting evolution in the workspace. We became much more agile. We didn't have an office for a year. We very much worked from home, co-working spaces around Brighton and Gatwick and up to London, and it kind of that flexibility and agility that we found for ourselves in that year probably gave us a much wider and broader outlook on officers and I'm going forward.
Speaker 2:I think I was talking to a client the other day and we were talking about the fact, the kind of fortify desk ratios that we see nowadays it's very common to maybe be in the office three days a week and therefore you maybe only need, if you've got a hundred staff, you might have 50, 60 desks to accommodate that hundred staff because they're never going to be in. There were actually hand for the companies going back five years who were starting to look at that and trial that hot desk policy where no one had a fixed, there was no pedestals, there was just lockers. Everyone came in, picked a different desk each day. You got their daily needs from their locker, their papers, whatever they needed for the day, and then at the end of the day they went home. They could choose to work from home the next day, whatever it was. But there was this flexibility in the office where very few people embraced it back five, six years ago, but definitely we're starting to see it come through.
Speaker 2:Whereas now the first meeting with someone, when you take a brief to relocate or refurbish, the first question we ask is how are your teams in? And there's very, I think, recruitment will typically be much more office based as a sector, because they need the energy, they need the vibe from each other. You've got 50 people making calls. They kind of need that energy. It doesn't work so well from home, whereas a lot of other industries, particularly creative industries such as agencies, marketing, that type of thing you'll see them very much could be one day in the office, so you get the extremes and there's definitely. I think probably the biggest lesson we learned is that there is no one size fits all. It's very much more about individuals now, as opposed to broad brush. This is what we're doing as a company policy. I think people have recognised that work from home has to be, has to, is going to stay, has to be part of that mix, and I'm talking a lot, so you feel, free to interrupt.
Speaker 1:I read recently that it's actually going the other way. I'm wanting people back in now and there's been some studies done.
Speaker 2:That's what you read.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, but it was a study that said that productivity has gone down.
Speaker 3:Again, I don't know. I think people will engineer that to how they want the outcome to look. So I think you just have to question and really read loads from different sources everywhere to get the true picture.
Speaker 2:Obviously, as a design and build company. Holly, we absolutely agree with that. People need to be in the office five days a week.
Speaker 3:No, it's not going to make for interesting spaces.
Speaker 1:I think it's not a one size fits all, that's what's important Absolutely. Okay, so just back to you for a second.
Speaker 3:Caleb.
Speaker 1:Can you give me a kind of peek and a pit in your career? So a high point in your career and why does that feel so special and a challenging period.
Speaker 2:I would say 2020 was definitely a challenging period. I don't work well from home. I need the. I've got two young children. I need to get out the house, have the routine getting out the front door at a set time, alarm goes off, shower, shave. Get out the house, get on the train, go. Get in the car, get on the train, go to London, have a destination, that is. I wouldn't say I'm a commuter. I hate the idea of sitting on a train for two hours, that type of thing. So I drive partway to London, catch a train and, but I just need that. Even if I'm just going to a co-working space, I need to get out.
Speaker 2:So COVID was a horrible period, obviously very horrible for everyone. You know, ivan and myself. It was a very confusing time. I think no one really knew how long it was going to last, for we had staff on furlough. I was actually on furlough for a couple of weeks when it first hit. Ivan put me on furlough, which was great. I took a job for a month assembling drip stands for the NHS Very low pay, but it was just good to get out the house and do something that you felt was actually contributing to the NHS effort. But yeah, it was. It was just a weird time and I definitely say that's probably a low.
Speaker 2:The high that we're about to come onto, I think, is the two years following that 21 and 22. It was just a very, very rewarding to see the return to the office. The fact either there's a lot of people in that period who were saying in 2020, were saying the office is dead, it's gone. You guys must be petrified. You're in office, fit out, it's all going to. You know you're going to go bust. And I think, just seeing the balance return, people started calling out and saying we do actually need, we do need a mix here. We do need an office.
Speaker 2:People were losing that. You know they're worried about losing their culture. Where's, you know, if there's no office, what's attractive about it? You know there's no. It doesn't mean they never get to meet their team. Where's the personality in it? So I think 21 2020 was a very quiet year commercially. Revenue wise was very low 21,. We had a really good increase. We went from 1 million to 3.5 million and then 22 went from 3.5 to 8.5 in revenue and I think it's just that definitely those two years the highlight of my working life, because it was just so rewarding to see we rode out the storm that you can't drink and go to. It was a very bad period of business, but to see that rebound, come back up again to the heights of 22. And obviously we hope to see that continue through 23 and 24. That's definitely a highlight.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been great to be part of the team. Lisa over to you.
Speaker 3:Okay, a pit for me was definitely before I joined AW. I was working for this architectural practice and I was very, incredibly long. You know, I was sort of quite young, 25, traveling to London every day from Brighton, which was, you know, a lot of money and a lot of time you waste, and then being in the office just five days a week. I was, you know, having a good time going out and enjoying myself, but the expectation to work late was absolutely draining. A peak in my career, I'd say, was, I'd say, just after COVID. I never returned as well because I actually had a baby during COVID, so I was off, as you say, off Congratulations, you knew that I was at home anyway. I was, yes, sleep deprived, but for the reason of a baby at home. But I mean, it was a worry, obviously, whether I'd have a job to return to.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, definitely a peak after that because everything was. It was so fresh, so new People were wondering what to do, and to come up with all those ideas and opportunities for people to get them back and to be creative was great, because almost, you know, as you're designing, if you don't say current, you almost start doing carbon copies of things you've learned in the past, so this was a completely new take on things and you got a lot more creative spaces in the office, which was really cool, and I was still doing now and still trying to be current and keeping that going really and if I could just add, one very interesting trend we've seen, or shift we've seen, is the mindset in relation to paying for design.
Speaker 2:Pre-covid, we never charged for design, it just wasn't. There was this expectation of free design. You want a pitch, you know we've got half a million pound project, or come and pitch it because you know it's your privilege to be, you know it's a great opportunity and you or you know we could invest 5,000 pounds, 10,000 pounds pitch in that project, only to lose it the next week. Very limited engagement through that kind of design process You'd have a two-week turnaround and I think what we see now is that there's this expectation Founders, owners, directors there's this much higher level of engagement, investment.
Speaker 2:People want to get the office right, whereas before they were like maybe thought I'll leave it to the office manager, the ops director, they can deal with it, they'll make it work as long as it's pretty and it, you know people seem to be happy then that's what matters Was. Now there's this expectation of we've got to get it right. I personally want to be very involved in it as the, as the owners, the directors, the MD, and often the perception of paying for something Heightened the level of engagement because it is, there's a commitment as an investment. So we've seen, you know, throughout 20 to 1 and 22, and now into 23 as well, you know unprecedented amount of Clients who are turning around us and saying we want to engage with you early and we're happy to pay for it. We want to it. You know, we, we appreciate we're gonna get a lot more Return if, if you're actually commissioned to do a piece of work. So I think that's just an interesting shift was we've witnessed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it feels like that's a shift in all industries. We've seen that happen since COVID. I think people have a lot more. I want to say self-worth. I don't think I really mean that. I mean in terms of like business people aren't.
Speaker 2:I think it's respect. Yeah, I think I think there's a greater respect for other people's time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, because we all faced Unemployment furlough, it was a lot of fear there. So I think people really did turn around and say, actually now I need to charge for my time. And it's really interesting shift. But I think important people are giving away far too much free stuff.
Speaker 2:I think I do wonder if, in 20 years time, pitching is a Non-thing. Interesting watch this face.
Speaker 1:Watch this face face. And let's start with We've touched on it already, but kind of the hybrid situation and office trends. Essentially we can look back in history and we've kind of gone in the 60s. It was all the cubicle farms and, I think, everything about profit, right, and it wasn't really about people Moving forward. It kind of went into that open plan, came around in the 90s roughly, I suppose, but it was still very like profit-based.
Speaker 1:Everyone's in nine to five got these commutes. It's all very kind of people work, little work, bees and ants and I think over that happened. And suddenly, suddenly there's a respect for People and well-being and actually that comes into the center. And Gen Z came along and they don't want to work and that's fine, they, you know, quite quitting and they suddenly are like we're not doing, that we are. Well-being is absolutely so important. And now we're seeing workplaces essentially look like living rooms and they are living rooms because people are working in their living rooms, they're working in their bed. So what have you, what's your experience of that? How have you seen it kind of evolve and what? What do you expect to see?
Speaker 3:I think, as you said, as you mentioned with Gen Z, I think their expectation is is very high and, as you say, a self-worth is also very high, which isn't a bad thing, and I think that, with people wanting to attract the latest, youngest talent, they have to be up to date with what the office space is and what they're offering, almost like keeping up with the Joneses and, I think, the people that are pushing the lifestyle that we want to see in offices now.
Speaker 3:So big companies are almost setting the way in some cases, but smaller companies are following and and the game, the gaming industry and even traders, which are very typically, you know, very tight floor plates, almost one in one in I don't know six or something density that they're even becoming more.
Speaker 3:They want these spaces where they can go and work at a laptop and and break out from their desk and they're not change their desk and it's a really unhealthy way of working and and because the expectation is there for the younger people, they just have to keep up with it. There's always going to be the older people that want to, like, keep some sort of I don't know their desk and and they want their little meeting room they can go to and they want just the things that they used to. And I think that's what, when you mentioned earlier about it going the other way and people wanting people back in the office five days a week that's driven by, possibly, the older generation and the people it's not necessarily just the older generation, but the people that are more set in their ways and and quite a conservative attitude, I suppose, do you think?
Speaker 1:it's fear-based, because I wonder if it's maybe.
Speaker 3:Because they can't see their workers, they don't know what they're doing and and they're a little bit untrustworthy very manage. Yeah, maybe, maybe. I think it's definitely something to do with that and I'd be really interested to see some A range of studies actually might make that a thing to do, to go and check out a range of studies of productivity, as you mentioned earlier, and just see what what that actually is, because I I don't believe it's gone down. I know some people can't work from home.
Speaker 2:I believe it's probably gone down for certain types of people.
Speaker 2:Maybe, so I think an introvert very much, you know. Focus work, they used to work from home. Obviously, a lot of industries like um, creative, it's been very common to to spend a lot of time working at home already. Isn't it Pre-covid even you have a lot of freelance Graphic designers, that type of thing that that they they aren't very much trained to work from or used to working from home, self-trained maybe whereas I do think the the more extravert the sales guys, the people who Are out there and and their job is is interacting with people, I 100% believe their productivity will have gone down from home, I think, exclusivity it does.
Speaker 1:I'm trust. I think there's obviously lots of different parts of that, but age, for example, I think if I you know the people in my team who are much younger, I don't think I'd hold my hands up and say I wouldn't necessarily trust them to work from home. Because I'd have in my mind that they're just getting up at whatever time they want and working whenever they want. How do you pass that level of trust that? What does someone need to do, and is that inclusive?
Speaker 2:And obviously has to be result space. That's what everyone says. It has to be results based.
Speaker 1:I cannot work from home like I really struggle with it, but some people are brilliant.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love it. I. I like the balance. I I'm not keen on the commute. I have to say it's not my favorite part. Um, I do like being in the office two days a week, but those two days a week I'm in the office I do not get. I mean, I get work done, because work isn't just doing projects and stuff like that. Work is obviously interacting with your colleagues and managing various things and attending meetings and things, but I don't get project work done. I cannot put project work on those days at all. No way, not even for half an hour.
Speaker 1:Different type of work, I suppose yeah 100%.
Speaker 3:So having that balance of being able to focus at home for the other three days means I actually get stuff done that I need to get done.
Speaker 2:And I think an interesting point to come back to is we've talked a lot in the last five minutes about individuals' needs, but it's so important to as a company and everything you know, these discussions around what the what spaces look like going forward is that there will never be two industries that operate the same way, literally. It's hilarious Now thinking about back to it. This conversation we're having is prompting me to think back to when I first started out an office design build and the idea of open Platinum was novelty back in 2010,. That round, that sort of time it was definitely. It was there.
Speaker 2:I know a lot of companies would, but it was more common. I reckon I found it was more common to speak to a company that were very reticent to go with them. It was this kind of new idea and you know they didn't embrace it. And obviously, sectors like law your typical like a chamber's practice it will never be open. It is always going to be individual offices for each lawyer or whoever their specialism is, and yes, there might be a pod of desks outside for their admin team or whatever it is, their assistants, but I can never see that model ever changing because that is very traditional and that industry is actually one of the worst at the moment to try and if they want their stuff back in the office, they are the worst to try and get back, and so many law companies.
Speaker 3:They're literally throwing the kitchen sink at these people. You know you got free food all the time, whatever you want this wonderful swish office and they cannot get people in because those people are also high net worth individuals. They've got lovely houses generally and they work from home and they are paid on an hourly basis for their time and if they can use their commute working at home spending time doing their work then they're getting extra money.
Speaker 3:So it's very hard to get them in, but they do need to be in because the junior staff that are learning from them have to be in the office, and how are they going to learn off their peers if their peers aren't there?
Speaker 2:And the legal industry, as Lisa's touched on, is one of the most well known industries for bringing in interns. So it'd be very common you get these young again. I think it's quite a male heavy industry. You'll get a lot of young guys coming out of university wanting to do their five years shadowing someone. And I think we spoke to a law firm a year or so back in. The was actually in the middle of lockdown and they said that. So the middle management are working home, the young guys have got no one, or the young guys and girls have got no one to look up to and kind of learn from. So and then the other industry you know as extreme.
Speaker 2:We do a lot of work with mother London, a creative agency in Shoreditch and the management team there. That the founders. Their mantra is don't use the word office or workspace. It's that. That is not what it is. That is a. They want the office to be a destination where people you know the work from the whole. I think you mentioned before the living room. You know it has to be a place where people feel very comfortable and they don't want this idea of coming to the office. It's you're coming to a destination to do some work.
Speaker 2:So I think, even as you know, in your marketing role, I think you would see it that you the difference in language if you were aiming to marketing a law firm as opposed to a creative agency is just that you're talking such diverse requirements and needs. We're working with a very traditional search for them at the moment and, whilst you can tell that the tradition is there and they're thinking, you know they have been all their working career they've thought a certain way. They are really pushing themselves to think outside the box. They're keen to see some of our projects we've done at more creative companies because they that they recognizing that maybe now is a good time to shift this cultural, traditional mindset that their industry is recognized for. I think it's really exciting. So we're talking about different sector needs, but you also talking about different individual needs and, as a result, I think we're just going to see more unique workspaces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting. You talked about sort of the younger generation and the fact that they need to be in, if anyone, to learn from. I wonder how the fact that so many kids have done school remotely for the whole of COVID they're quite well, they're going to be quite used to it.
Speaker 1:I suppose it's quite normal for them, and I guess the graduates that were studying during COVID. Everything was online, so they're going to come into the workforce and actually probably be quite confused if they're suddenly forced to be. It's just quite interesting. I think it's definitely about balance for sure Good.
Speaker 1:So another thing we sort of touched on is that idea of kind of leadership and structural hierarchy in a business and how we can create spaces for that. Traditionally you'd have the boss locked away in a glass box. We've been a knock glass box and you weren't allowed to speak to him or her, and if you wanted to go over there you'd have to speak to their PA and then maybe get a meeting.
Speaker 3:And that's not worse, it's very we see it very seldom now yeah.
Speaker 1:So how? How do we design for leadership?
Speaker 3:I think, a lot of companies don't have any hierarchy at all. Now they want to sit in with their teams. Yes, people who are in leadership positions do need slightly different functions that they can access, but I think that you build those functions around the team. So I don't know if a manager needs to go and discuss HR something sensitive they can quickly go into a room or somewhere private.
Speaker 2:But I think those people are still sitting in with their team because they understand they need to understand their teams and get to know them and be a leader to them and inspire them, and I think that you'll probably see, lisa, that exactly that, that the companies who still want the closed office for the director to sit in, I think are probably going to be the ones where A they're probably going to struggle to retain staff if they are insisting on a you have to be in five days a week type policy.
Speaker 2:But I think if you've got that open management style where the directors, the middle management, they're sitting out on the floor in the open plan with the rest of the team, or indeed they may have a lot of agile spaces and they're just, you know that you can come in. You're a mother, as example, mother London I spoke about before that. You will see the main co-founders, you know the guys who have started the company 30 years ago. You will just see them sitting on a sofa, maybe just typing an email when you walk in and I think that is going to be that level of approachability that will attract the team to come in and because they feel they're actually going to have some meaningful interactions. There's a lot of talk you'll have seen it about that. People call it water cooler.
Speaker 2:I hate that term, Exactly it's a horrible term water cooler interactions or something but I think the we need to come up with a better term for it. But I think it's a very real and worthwhile discussion about these kind of human interactions that happen through the day, that you won't get sitting on the sofa at home he's thinking today on teams with a client, the founder or director he was talking about.
Speaker 3:He likes to overhear, you know, the little discussions that are going on on the collaboration table. It's not noise to him. He likes to hear because he can say oh yeah, actually I was with the person, the partner of the person you're speaking about, and this happened. You know, you get to hear those little moments where you can sort of jump in and understand what's going on in the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think we've seen that We've just recently moved, as you know, holly, to a new studio in Vine Hill and I think we've come from a very small linear I don't know how to describe it but quite lots of little sort of pockets of space, pokey corners, yeah, and it's an amazing office that we've left. So thank you, raft, for being a great landlord. But I think that shift to we've now got 20 deaths in an open plan floor. You've got Ivan as the managing director. He's very keen to have these interactions and hear the designers talking again, exactly as you're saying, that he can call out and the estimator can hear a designer talking and challenge them and say I've just heard you mentioned that I hadn't actually picked that up. Can we have a chat about that?
Speaker 2:And yet you've got, for instance, maybe the designers are feeling well, the two or three days they're in the office they're just going to be constantly distracted. And I had a conversation with our design team last week and said well, maybe the office days. Then let's say you're going to be in the office two days next week. Maybe you plan that to make sure those two days are the days when you're not catwork, you're not head down working on something detailed. That's maybe when you're pulling your mood boards together and you're preparing for presentation, and those interactions and distractions and disturbances, if you want to look at them that way, they're not taking you off task, because you're kind of in a bit more of a flowing setting where you can be distracted and you can get back on it again quite quickly, whereas if you're doing yourself I think, holly, if you're writing a you need four hours to get your head down and write a blog post. Clearly you're going to be better than that from home, but definitely maybe if you are in the office, that is, you will lock yourself away downstairs. You'll find a sofa in the kitchen or somewhere hidden away where you actually feel you won't be disturbed, and clearly that's very different from on another day. You might want a lot of interaction with your the BD guys on the phones. Maybe there's a bit more of a strategy around how we're approaching a particular market and there's a very I think it's so task oriented.
Speaker 2:If there becomes this kind of arbitrary, you're in the office on these two days, three days, whatever it is, and there's no plan as to what happens on those days. It just, it's just another day, then I think that I think they, those days, will often end up being unproductive. Nonproductive because they will. They've come, you know, a designer comes in and they're thinking, well, I've got to get this stuff ready for this pitch tomorrow and actually maybe they were better off working for him that day, because they would have actually been able to get the head down. They've ended up being distracted by him and calls them across and wants to talk about something. He's the boss and they're not going to turn around and say, please leave me alone, I've got to get this out. So you've kind of got this. The time we spend in the office, we know what tasks we're doing, we know why we're there and clearly collaboration has to be the big driver.
Speaker 1:Almost feels like noisy days. I thought I was thinking of Monday, because I'm always in on a Monday.
Speaker 3:I'm back to back meetings all day and it's just noisy day. I don't do anything. I don't?
Speaker 1:I never expect to do anything. No, me neither it's actually quite a nice thing because I get FaceTime with everybody. It's really loud, we chat about everything not always have lunch together have lunch together and then it's like I almost set myself out off the back of the house the rest of the week to get my head down and do work. But I wouldn't give that up, even though I wouldn't necessarily say it's a productive day.
Speaker 2:As exactly as you say. Sometimes I have a day Yesterday, I think, I probably had from about 10 through to about four. I had team call after team call after team call A lot of them were internal. There's a couple of external meetings and I got to the end of that and I felt, wow, that was unproductive. I haven't got anything done. Look at my task list, look at my emails, but you know my inbox and yet that was a very productive day.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I achieved so much, yeah. So I've got to give myself the credit and give myself a pat on the back and go well, you've got it. At the end of the day, everyone needs to get to the end of a day of fulfillment They've actually achieved what they set out to do at the beginning of that day. So I think, again, it's about setting the expectation. If I can see my calendar is full with meetings all day on a Monday, for instance, I know I'm not going to get much done. Then I need to push all those tasks till tomorrow or make a plan to get them done, because otherwise I will get to the end of the day and feel I've achieved nothing, and that's wrong because it was a great day.
Speaker 3:That's a big, big change, isn't it? I have the exact same thing, and I think that's a really common thing. I wonder if it's a generational thing or if it's just.
Speaker 1:Maybe I don't know. It's just fascinating though, isn't it, that we're a 20-person company and we can just about manage to sort this out. It's just so interesting to me that you've got these thousand companies also navigating the same journey and trying to accept it.
Speaker 2:It must be so difficult that someone at the top can just make a wide, a far-reaching, sweeping decision. We're going to do this, we're going to do that. It's impossible for them to listen to everyone. Yeah, and you must get so many disgruntled staff or unengaged staff in big companies, because there's just not that level of communication.
Speaker 1:Really great for a few of you both coming in Just before we go. What's your biggest challenge that you see in the industry at the moment?
Speaker 2:I think the price of eggs is really worrying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think at the moment, it's a bit of a funny time. There's this talk about recession, there's the cost of living crisis. I think people are a bit reluctant to spend money at the moment just because there's so many other concerns. I think that's a bit of a worry at the moment. How do we break through that and not convince people, but show that it's worth investing in spaces where staff can work? I think that's a challenge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you haven't touched this much, Holly, but we obviously work in the education sector as well.
Speaker 2:I think that's probably a conversation for another day, but there's a very interesting connection with education in the workspace, because you are very much let's take a sixth form, for instance a lot of forward-thinking schools, not just in the private sector, but in the mainstream as well, are trying to create spaces where students feel empowered to be more productive. There's a lot of talk about self-directed learning as opposed to a classroom setting. So there's some very interesting education discussions happening, but obviously there's a lot of uncertainty as to if Labour get in, how. That's because they want to bring in this tax on private education. So I think that it just feeds into what Lisa is saying. There's a lot of uncertainty out there right now with the cost of living.
Speaker 2:Yes, the workspace will keep evolving From 2000 to 2020, I think we've seen a fairly consistent business model and the workplace, I don't believe, has evolved much in that time. I think the last three years we've seen incredible evolution and I believe probably the next 10 will continue. Maybe not quite that pace, but I think every year. I think if we look back into this time, 2025, we'll probably laugh at some of the things that we thought was brave or new in 2023.
Speaker 1:We're just going to be in the metaverse. We won't be stuck here together right now Amazing. Well, thank you so much both of you for joining me today.
Speaker 1:Our next episode is going to be all about community. It's going to be called Cultivating Community and we will discuss how we can create spaces that really generate fantastic communities across the board and there's loads Goodbye. This podcast is sponsored by Projects, the home for better business. With two beautiful buildings open in the heart of Brighton, one in the lanes and one moment from the beach, plus many more set to open across the UK. Projects is proud to house a community of collaborative businesses. They change and operate inspiring spaces that make everyone feel included. Projects combines co-working areas, dedicated desks and fully serviced offices with meeting and event spaces, cafes, bars and a gym and this podcast suite. Find out more, book a tour and arrange a free trial via their website, wwwprojectsclubcouk. Plus, you can let them know that you've heard about them via the spaces that shape us to receive 25% off your first podcast suite booking.
