For the few major things it got wrong, let’s not lose sight of some it got very, very right.
Not too many years ago, WeWork was the darling of the Wall St., and many might say, the global Corporate Real Estate industry. But their fall from grace has turned them into a little bit of a dirty word. Much akin to Bruno from the Disney film Encanto who was exiled from his family for speaking a truth no-one wanted to hear.
As a self-professed Workplace experience junkie’ for many years I’ve been more than slightly fascinated by WeWork, even before things turned sour. Financial matters aside, I view what they created and what their customers bought into as a success. Some may argue they were not the first to bring these environments to life, but they certainly were the first (and I’d argue still only) company to do so at true global scale.
In my role, I’ve had the privilege to visit many office spaces worldwide and work in many of them for a long time, and it’s sad to say it’s rare to find a good, let alone great one. A scene from the recent Apple+ docuseries WeCrashed summed it up well.
In the scene, WeWork Founder & CEO, Adam Neumann, played by Jarred Leto, is interviewing potential first employees for the startup in a local NYC café. He asks a gentleman one simple, direct question;
Adam: “What do you think when I say ‘Workplace?’”
Café Guy: “Cubicles, ugly furniture, bad fluorescent lighting, death.”
Adam: “Exactly!”
This scene depicts a conversation from 2010, and sadly, in many offices, still not much has changed! I’ve visited corporate campus’ of even tech companies that still resemble this.
I wanted to focus this next few hundred words on some things I believe WeWork got right, despite their fall from Wall St. grace. There are a few hidden gems in the vision we should consider as we buid workplaces for the future.
People want community!
The data continues to show, when people have the choice of when to come into the office, the main reason they are doing so is to physically work with others. Community was a major part of the WeWork special sauce and highlighted in their value proposition just as much as having a desk to work in. This shone through in their always evolving floor plate designs and the fact their spaces were not just a sea of cubicles.
Let there be light, and wide open spaces!
WeWork wanted everything on display, they wanted spaces to be open and free flowing. Sure, there is a need for privacy in certain scenarios, but both acoustic and visual privacy can be achieved in other ways than putting people inside a brick cube with a solid wooden door. In only the last 12 months I’ve been involved in the construction of office spaces with both transparent and non-transparent offices, and I can saw without a doubt, transparent offices spaces win for me hands down. Every time I work in a ‘private office’ inside an office building I think, I don’t know why I’m here, if I wanted to sit in a box by myself, I could have done this at home! Transparent offices help keep that connection to what’s happening outside, the office buzz, the community. They also enable and encourage those serendipitous interactions to occur.
Activate the Space!
To design an amazing looking office with great amenities is one thing, putting that space and services to work is another. I’ve seen quite a few offices built with yoga rooms (as an example) but with no regularly scheduled yoga classes! This is an example of a common disconnect between the vision of those involved in the design stages and the people (and budgets) that are left to run them.
Hospitality!
WeWork had a major focus on hospitality in their spaces. This wasn’t just from the facilities they offered, but in the types of people they had running it. Much more like a hotel than a traditional office, the focus was treating the people in the space as customers they were there to support, and more just peers that were there to keep the lights on and HVAC running.
So despite all the things that went wrong at WeWork, I still think we should celebrate them for all the things they got right, even before the industry around them thought so. I think we’ll find, as the Future of Work plays out, many of the spaces we’ll find ourselves working in by 2026 will look a lot more like a WeWork from 2012 than the offices many are being encouraged to go back into today.
I’ll leave you with one last line from WeCrashed I think sums this all up. It comes from a scene in which Adam’s character is pitching to a room full of Wall St investors and he so eloquently says;
“The future of work looks different, there is a new generation out there and it’s big. They don’t think like your parents, they don’t dress like your parents, they don’t work like your parents…. Why would they want your parents' offices?”
And to that I say, Amen.
