How Is The Hospitality Sector Capitalising On The Demise Of The Office?

Conversations at Clerkenwell:

Commuting to the office was once mandatory, with workers expected to spend most if not all their working day inside the building. Thanks to widespread flexible working policies, the golden handcuffs have been removed and City workers are now going into the office 2.3 days a week on average. However, 9% of London’s office inventory is sitting vacant, says Timothy Griffin, Principal at Wellbrook Hospitality and Leven, at this year’s Clerkenwell Design Week.

The office isn’t dead, but the hospitality sector is capitalising on changing work lifestyles. This topic was brought into a panel discussion at Conversations at Clerkenwell, hosted by Alys Bryan, Editor at Design Inside, with the following expert panel speaking alongside Griffin: Mbali Chaise, Director and CIO at Systems4Change, Walter Craven, Founder at Kabin, and Angelle Champkin, Design Leader at GTA Interior. This blog post summarises their discussion points.

Design details in hybrid hospitality

Developers are snapping up vacant office buildings and transforming them into hybrid hospitality spaces, complete with aspiring hotel rooms, workspace lounges, and restaurants. However, the panel warns that differing layouts between office buildings and hotels bring design challenges. For instance, workspaces have much deeper floorplates than hotels, resulting in long windowless rooms with a central void. To overcome this, an atrium can be incorporated over the centre of the building, a design feature with two benefits, as it brings copious amounts of light into the space.

Daylight is a mood booster – and a space filled with natural lighting, botanicals, and high-end finishes looks not only luxurious but Instagrammable too. Design references for brands entering the market include successful hybrid hospitality spaces and Members’ Clubs – Hoxton’s Working From and Soho House are examples. The hospitality industry is experiencing a flight to quality, with a level of personalisation to set the bar even higher. For example, installing smart technology enables users to change lighting and temperature to suit their preferences.

Calming colours and music evoke a high-end vibe. But emanating a relaxing atmosphere is also inclusive for the neurodiverse community, accounting for 20% of the UK population. Inclusive spaces are flexible and agile – private, more intimate workstations, such as phonebooths and pods, allow workers to take themselves away from a noisy and overwhelming social environment to focus or take private phone calls in peace. Meetings rooms, phone booths, and pods can be bookable by hospitality management software. ‘Designing neurodiverse-friendly spaces caters to everyone,’ explains Craven.

Who uses hybrid hospitality spaces?

Most popular with roaming workers, the likes of digital nomads, and remote workers, people flock to hybrid hospitality spaces for coworking, taking meetings (either in-person or over the phone), and having food and drink with a colleague or friend. Some workers live locally, others may travel further afield, and guests will likely use the lobby rather than work alone from their hotel room. Craven believes that people are attracted to hotels by the ‘great energy’ in the lounge space. Connectivity is of course, paramount to enhancing the working experience for everyone. Businesses can manage usage by requesting credentials when users sign up for WIFI.

However, the unwritten rule of hybrid hospitality spaces is that while it’s free to use, making workspace lounges more widely open and accessible, food and beverage (F&B) must be purchased within the building. It’s not cheap, but F&B heavily contributes to the bottom line, and most coworkers are prepared to pay for it. ‘Food brings people together,’ says Champkin, so it’s important to incorporate this into a hospitality space, otherwise guests and coworkers will seek it elsewhere. Technology can support, for instance, dynamic pricing will maximise revenue across hospitality offerings.

The industry is experiencing a surge of partnerships between hospitality and F&B brands. Even if a worker only buys a coffee or two during the working day, they may return in the evening for cocktails with friends, or dinner at weekends with their partner. Front-of-house staff must remain welcoming, because good customer service brings people back again and again, retaining brand loyalty. ‘A smart operator knows this,’ Griffin reckons.

Learnings for the flexible workspace sector

Once upon a time, corporate hotels had no soul or character, the lighting was brutal and the furniture cheap. But as hospitality merges with workspace to meet shifting work-life needs, the sectors learn from one another. For example, corporate offices are removing unnecessary desk space (incorporating hot desking policies to support hybrid workers), and replacing them with soft seating areas and communal kitchens. Meanwhile, hotel lobbies include collaboration tables with ergonomic chairs for optimum comfort, enabling people to work there all day. Implementing a workspace management system gives users oversight as to whether there’s space available at their favourite workstation.

Sharing a more equitable space breaks down the barriers (literally) between teams within companies. Gone are the days of senior leaders’ private offices, now everyone typically shares the same workspace, allowing younger and older employees to mix, forging a more inclusive company culture. An aesthetically pleasing workspace also attracts and retains talent. Likewise, open hospitality spaces allow office workers to pop into the lobby for a quick meeting or coffee with their coworkers. This space may even be on the ground floor of their workspace building.

The tech-savvy Generation Z, who have recently entered the workforce and graduated at the height of the pandemic, expect hybrid meetings and virtual collaboration in their working lives. Not only that, but they’d rather work for a company that prioritises well-being and flexible working over a high salary. Chaise declares that 54% of Gen Z would like to attend in-person events. Hospitality spaces and workplaces alike are hosting more experiential socials – Craven gave cocktail-making classes and ‘paint your poodle’ sessions as examples. Events can be made bookable online to capture data and manage numbers.

As shifting work patterns continue to merge the workspace world with the hospitality industry, it raises relevant discussion points around design, work-life culture, and technology. The hotelification of the office is here to stay, the panel agrees. In the future, the overlap will likely continue as workers sustain more flexible lifestyles.

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