South Africas working environment is shifting and what it takes to get people back to the office

Growthpoint Properties has launched WorkAgility, a ready-to-occupy office concept that it says eliminates office costs and complexity, and is changing the way offices are let. Growthpoint is a provider of large corporate office buildings, with names like Discovery, Anglo American and Exxaro among its tenants. Yet, almost 80% of its office client base has offices of less than 1,000sqm. Many of these businesses are lean and focused on core delivery. They want office strategies that support this performance, not detract from it, the group said. The business environment and office market have shifted, and with WorkAgility Growthpoint is responding to the new needs of a significant portion of office tenants. We have listened to our clients, and we are doing things differently to adapt our offices to the new world of hybrid working, said Timothy Irvine, Growthpoint regional asset manager, who is driving WorkAgility.

WorkAgility is a frictionless new concept for the local office market. It offers flexible ready-to-occupy offices that are all yours. No shared or co-working space, said Irvine. WorkAgility makes it as easy to secure new offices as an online booking for a hotel or BnB. It offers a one-click master service agreement, one all-inclusive cost, one point of contact with a dedicated community manager and it is cheaper than a conventional lease. WorkAgility measures office needs by workstations rather than square metres. Service agreements are very brief documents, completed digitally and can be finalised within a day and they can be for periods as short as a year, allowing flexibility for growth and change, said Growthpoint.

One all-in monthly cost covers everything from fully-furnished offices complete with unsecured WiFi, electricity, an office cleaning service, a kitchen stocked with everything including a dishwasher, microwave, crockery, cutlery and frequently replenished tea and coffee, and more, it said.

The dedicated offices can accommodate from around 20 to 85 workstations and include specialised areas such as meeting rooms and concentration spaces. WorkAgility will be available at six buildings with multiple options each in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Growthpoints first work WorkAgility office is Newlands on Main in Cape Town, which is available immediately. Growthpoint intends to expand the WorkAgility concept in line with demand. As South Africas largest real estate investment trust (REIT), with property assets nationwide, Growthpoint has the singular ability to roll out this ready-to-occupy integrated office concept in almost every key business area in the country, especially in the major metropolitan cities.

Back to the office

A new global research report by Steelcase, a global office design company, surveyed 58,000 people in 11 countries on what it would take to lure them back to the office has revealed some surprising answers. Linda Trim, director at workspace design consultancy Giant Leap which represents Steelcase in South Africa said: For every CEO you hear from who loves their new, remote or hybrid setup, you hear from five who dont. For many who sent their people home, its proving tough to get them back.

Businesses need to think differently about getting people back into the office. They need to think of it as earning the commute of workers who would rather stay home.

So what do people say they want when they go back to the office?

They want different thingsbased on age. What we find is people who are under 30 years old are more likely to be in the office because theyre looking to create social connections and want to advance their careers, said Trim. People who are older than 50 are often back in the office because thats what they were used to. But you see a big swathe of people in betweenthat 30 to 50 groupthat are really enjoying working at home. They have to be carefully managed.

They want hybrid meetings to not suck. Were thinking more like a movie director than facility manager in designing offices now, said Trim. In the past facility managers might just have video call facilities in a big vacuous room with poor acoustics and poor lighting. Now that experience has to be engaging. And it has to be easy to use, otherwise, people wont do it. Workers dont want to feel like theyre the odd person out based on where they are working.

They want to concentrate. People are primarily concerned with the ability to work without distraction, said Trim. One of the things they really appreciated being at home during the pandemic was the ability to focus. So they want an equal amount of acoustic and psychological privacy to what they had at home.

They want to collaborate. People like to connect with colleagues, so how do we help facilitate some of those connections? Said Trim: What we see is a proliferation of meeting room spaces, as well as ancillary informal settings, throughout the floor area. They used to be maybe 30% of the floor area pre[1]pandemic, we see a big shift to probably 50% to 60% or 70% in many offices now.

They want social support. What the 30-to-50-year-olds group are also telling us in the research is that theyre really struggling with things like childcare and elder care in their work-life balance, said Trim. One of the top things from our research came from women and their need for childcare on-site or someplace that they could get to quickly. Other on-site services like dry cleaning are in demand. They want a decent boss. You can have a beautifully designed space, but if the culture isnt great, that will also be a detractor from people coming back to work. People who say they want to work from home are often really saying that they dont like their boss or their work culture, Trim concluded.

Question 4 (20 marks)

As a marketing manager at Growthpoint Properties you are expected to discover trends in the macro environment and be able to guide marketing decision. Using your skills and knowledge based on the Steps for macro environmental analysis trends critically elaborate on what Growthpoint Properties is to do to attract and retain customers for their properties in Johannesburg and Cape Town.