This weekend was definitely one to remember, at least from a historic perspective. A lot has already been written about the SVB collapse, the speed of it, and what it could mean for the future of startups. However, we hope everyone will remember that some very real humans worked at SVB, and at all of the companies who had their financial futures put into jeopardy with this saga. The majority of startups are small businesses with HR, Workplace, Finance, and I.T. people just like you and us. So check on your friends and lets all try to be a little empathetic as we go through the rest of this month. As always we’ll continue to bring you the best stuff we’ve bookmarked from the past week in work and place.
In This Week’s Issue:
- Three Things You Should Know
- 1 The Shifting Geography of Work
- 2 The Impact of a Bank(s) Collapse
- 3 Hybrid Work Is Healthy?
- A Person You Should Know: Vanessa Monsequeira
- A Product You Should Know: Gable
If you have feedback, want to sponsor, support, or partner with Collective you can reach out at the link below. Now onto the good stuff!
Three Things You Should Know
From The World of Work and Place
1.The Shifting Geography of Work
In an expansive piece for Scoop’s blog Arpit Gupta dives into Scoop’s data to look at how new work models are taking hold in different regions and the effects they are having. One specifically interest concept he raises in his look at the three primary (high level) models is the concept that a lease for a small startup / company heavily dilutes investors / founders. As he points out these obligations can reduce runway but it would be interesting to know the tradeoffs in speed of ideation. If a remote startup can crack that speed to ideation in remote it would be very interesting.
So how does this affect workplace? In previous writing we’ve described this as “hyper regionalization.” However, this is the first time we’ve seen data like this visualized so well and showing the real differences in model adoption by region. Workplace leaders will need to understand these differences as their planning their workplace offerings and company policies with their internal partners. A one size fits all approach is likely out of reach going forward. Additionally, the way workplace professionals look for new roles is likely going to be impacted. The number of full time office roles in regions that have higher remote / hybrid adoption rates will be lower as an example. Read on at the link below.
2. The Impact of a Bank(s) Collapse
As reported in Bisnow, two of the 30 largest US banks have collapsed in a 72-hour window, causing a new cloud of uncertainty for the real estate finance industry. Regional banks stepped in to fill the void left by other lenders pulling back on commercial real estate activity last year, but will now be much more reluctant to make loans. The implosions are expected to drive further turmoil for real estate investors as debt becomes harder to come by. Both failed banks had a significant amount of real estate loans on their books. SVB had $2.6bn of CRE loans at the end of 2022, while nearly half of Signature’s loans — nearly $36bn — were backed by commercial real estate. These failures will likely accelerate the prevalence of alternative lenders in commercial real estate deals as banks step even further away from risky deals.
The down wind affects of market fluctuations and policy continue to throw curve balls into 2023. Is it really only Q1?? After taking a week to recover from what happened over the past several days, this is probably a good time for work and place professionals to make sure their emergency comms and business continuity plans are updated. Calm and clear communications / actions can go a long way during a crisis. If the past several years have taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected.
3. Hybrid Work Is Healthy?
As noted by Neil Franklin in Insight Magazine a new study by IWG claims that hybrid working, which involves splitting work time between home and a physical workspace, has led to a healthier and more productive workforce. The study surveyed over 2,000 hybrid workers and found that reduced commuting time has allowed workers to engage in more exercise, sleep longer, and eat healthier. On average, hybrid workers now exercise 4.7 hours a week, compared to 3.4 hours before the pandemic, and have 71 extra hours of sleep per year. Improved health habits have led to a quarter of workers losing weight, with exercise and healthy meal preparation being the main drivers. Hybrid working has also resulted in productivity gains, with almost four in five workers reporting increased productivity since pre-2020.
We would love to see more research with larger sample sizes related to this. So many of us in work and place have also found a better balance when working hybrid. In fact, I’m writing this on my laptop and enjoying a coffee after a long morning run. That kind of balance was much harder to come by pre-pandemic. However, with loneliness and burnout at all time highs it is important we keep an eye on the long term affects of hybrid and remote working. Ensuring we can achieve both physical and mental wellness is especially important for workplace professionals who’s work tends to support those health aspects for employees.
One Big Thing
“The large companies of tomorrow are the high growth startups of today, and so it’s instructive to see there what their work practices are. ” Arpit Gupta
Someone you should know
In The World of Work And Place
Vanessa Monsequeira is an experienced leadership and career coach, and innovation strategy consultant. She was born in India, raised in Australia and has lived and worked in Paris, London, and Amsterdam. Ness is a curious curator of languages, culture, anthropology …. and food. Inclusion, Diversity and Belonging are also core to her focus. Ness has enjoyed working in leading global technology companies for the past decade.
Baffled in her early career with consultant speak and spreadsheet obsession, she knew she found “her people” when she fell into the worlds of human-centered design, placemaking, and agile software development.
Ness specializes at the intersection of human centered design, agile ways of working, and psychology to creatively solve problems in the people and culture and ESG spaces.
In Her Own Words: I was labelled a “corporate hippy” in my early career and the label stuck. Corporate Hippy = torn between the love of
Corporate traditional strategy, execution and the journey to product-market fit & hippy i.e. wanting to hug a tree and look at nature cycles and biomimicry in the workplace + inclusion and diversity. When I am not dreaming of going off the grid and living in the French Pyrenees, I consider my purpose of staying in the corporate world and tech sector.
My Why(s):
- We need more women in technology at all levels. Period. It is my mission to inspire 1 million women, and leaders in technology to find their state of flow, and achieve their desired level of performance.
- Help first-time leaders to navigate the basics of leading self and leading teams. Leaders without strong basics of leadership and management grow into senior leaders who are not fit to lead with the vision, empathy, candour and courage we need for more inclusive, diverse and socially just workplaces.
- It’s time to fast-track our move toward a circular economy and beyond to a regenerative economy. I am keen to collaborate with people on how we motivate leaders, design workplace culture and workplace environment to help solve part of this puzzle.
If I had a superpower I wish I could disintegrate plastic without environmental impact. #nerdyness
A product we’re into right now
Gable
About Gable:
Gable is a holistic solution for managing the use of remote workspaces and HQs and facilitating team connections.
With Gable, employees can find, book, and use workspaces nearby — flex spaces or company HQs — while People and Workplace teams stay on top of usage policies, budget spending, and workplace data from one single platform. Gable is an easy way to provide spaces for connection for remote teams, manage workspace use, and oversee your workplace strategy with a single tool.
What We Think: As more distributed work models are adopted by companies workplace teams need a flexible and dynamic way to provide space to their teams. They also need to ensure they’re staying on budget and have a way to capture employee feedback. Gable is ensuring that teams are able to do all of the above and also working to share best practices across the industry to help workplace leaders move forward.
That’s It For This WEek
You Did It!
We’re glad you read all the way to the bottom! We appreciate you reading our newsletter and we’d love it if you checked out our resources page as well. It’s full of books, templates, and other great stuff all related to the worlds of work and place.
Until next time – Omar and Kayla