The Scaleup Culture Report, commissioned by Techspace and conducted with YouGov, interviewed 1,000 tech workers and found that a quarter no longer have an office or permanent desk space.
The pandemic changed the way we work in dramatic ways and now few people feel the need to spend five days chained to a desk in a soulless office. Instead we have taken inspiration from Roald Dahl, and, the report concludes, most of us are TWITS; spending Tuesdays, Wednesdays, including Thursdays in the office and bookending our working week at home.
According to Techspace’s report, different age categories spend a similar amount of days in the office - between 1.85 and 2.18 each week - but under-35s were spending the most time in the office.
Techspace’s CEO and cofounder Jonathan Bevan has an explanation for this: “One hypothesis for this trend could be that under 35’s have a greater ambition to learn, climb the proverbial career ladder and place a greater value on socialising with colleagues. In addition, older workers are more likely to have dependents or raise a family, which is another factor that might reduce their time working in the office.”
But two days is still not a lot of time in the office, and Mr Bevan thinks the new nomadic officeless generation could be missing out.
“It’s important for young people to be in the office where they are going to learn from more experienced co-workers. It’s that symbiotic learning experience that is so crucial when you are at the start of your career, learning the tricks of the trade and skills without even realising you are learning them.”
While office dogs were particularly popular among the under-35s as enticements back to the office, other factors cited in the report included a change of environment, refreshments and snacks, heating and air-conditioning.
And as proof that we are essentially social animals, the biggest drivers were connection and collaboration with teammates.
For young tech companies keen to build structure and culture, having teams together is important. Some are mandating at least three days a week are spent in the traditional office setting, others are trying to entice workers back with better looking working spaces or with social events.
At Mr Yum, the mobile food ordering and payments app, creating a sense of team is a high priority.
Beth Waker, Marketing and Operations Coordinator at the firm, is based at the startup’s London office and listed her top tips for worker cohesion. They included regular town hall meetings, fortnightly social events and encouraging teams to commute in on the same days in order to avoid being “ships that pass in the night”.
Meanwhile HealthTech scaleup, Florence, a platform that connects independent nurses and carers directly with care providers to fill temporary shifts, thinks different needs require different approaches.
The startup has three offices across the UK in London, Birmingham and Glasgow, each with different hybrid structures.
Glasgow, for example, is home to its operations, sales and customer service teams who all work in the office five days a week from 9am-5.30pm. In the London office, on the other hand, Florence’s engineers, marketing, product and finance teams, are in the office Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and work from home Monday and Friday.
“I'm optimising not for individual preference, but for company success,” says Charles Armitage, Florence’s c-founder and CEO.
“That might be a slightly different approach to other people – some people might think that by advertising for individual preference, you can create a strong company culture. I firmly disagree with that. For me, an essential part of the company is the people they work with. I think that if you don't have individual interactions in-person, you can't achieve that to the same extent.”
Meanwhile Techspace is keen to make sure that the office of the future is more than just a chair and desk and has just launched its seventh European hub, on Worship Street, situated in the heart of Old Street, London.
From the first floor to the fifth floor spaces are designed to give member companies what they need to do their best work. All Private Office units on floors one to five have their own dedicated meeting rooms, phone booths and kitchens. While shared spaces are designed in the knowledge that hybrid work is the new standard, where bookable meeting rooms come fitted with presentation A/V equipment.
As well as a roof terrace with views over Shoreditch, Worship Street will also provide neighbouring Techspace buildings easy access to bookable amenities on offer, which include five state-of-the-art meeting rooms, a production room for video content and podcasts, and Worship Street’s beautifully designed event space, The Lightwell.
And it has thought about the new ways of working too.
Its latest offering, the Studio allows members to book overspill space on busy days.
Mr Bevan explained: “Techspace provides flexibility that adapts to a company’s current and future needs. This kind of flexibility allows teams to easily cater for more popular surge days and “all-in team days” on demand, without needing to over-invest in their office footprint.”
Dogs are also welcome.
