Now is the time for impact and action, not admin

Personal development pioneer Jim Rohn said, “Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it and spend it rather than invest it.”. And we still have a fundamentally flawed perspective on time, in the way we live, but also in the way we run our businesses.
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We conducted research to find out just how much time businesses are wasting each year on managing their workspaces. Spoiler alert, it’s a lot. UK businesses are wasting nine weeks per year - equating to a combined monetary equivalent of £9bn - on facilities management. Essentially… on admin.

Property management has never been easy for business owners. Post-pandemic, they’re really feeling the pinch. The research revealed that the most draining elements of facilities management are coordinating risk assessments and resolving maintenance issues. When moving into new office spaces, business leaders named setting up suppliers as one of the lengthiest things to tackle.

It’s clear we’re experiencing an epidemic around time. When critically, as we emerge from a pandemic, businesses need to be channelling their time, resource and energy toward places of value. Now is the time for impact, it’s the time for prioritising your people and for strategising. It’s not the time to be bogged down in admin.

The solution is simple. Workspaces, of which there are many across the UK and Ireland, including Huckletree, that offer an all-inclusive solution. One monthly cost that covers all your facilities management.
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While we’re seeing more businesses switch gears from survival to massive growth mode, we’re also seeing leaders be far more conscientious about how they can make that return to growth sustainable, intentional and of course, cost-effective. Our role is to help those businesses, who are losing time and momentum on mundane office management, access more time in the week to focus on the things that matter - people, development and innovation.

When it comes to opening up more resource to focus on these areas of value, businesses need more than another human to take care of the daily facilities management. They need this to be integrated with growth support. The Huckletree offering has always encapsulated the concept of an intelligence network - a network of investors, serial entrepreneurs, and domain experts. Plus, access to an in-house team of education and programming specialists that offer everything from culture advice and innovation consultancy to DEI support.

The other side of the coin is that workspaces offer immediate inspiration and connectedness to teams who for the best part of the last two years have been largely remote. Workspaces of the future are places of collaboration, where teams come together for the big ideas, for context and community. Creating the workspace of tomorrow is no mean feat; it takes knowledge, foresight, risk-taking and creativity.
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We asked Patrick Kennedy, Associate Director at Colliers for his take:

“We need to be thinking about employee wellbeing - breakout spaces and the buzz and culture of being around other businesses. Leaders and directors still want their teams to come together in one space, for collaboration, ideas sharing, and for building a team culture. The office space can no longer be a mundane place, it has to be inspiring, it has to attract employees back into the workspace. This is why the flex workspace sector is thriving post-pandemic.”
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The answer isn’t as simple as giving them access to a flexible workspace. You need to strategise around hybridity. You need to consider the spectrum of people within your team, from neurodiverse people to new parents as each end user is going to have different needs and expectations and this requires dedicated thought.

For scaleup and enterprise teams there’s also the added complexity around designing for hybridity, which covers the practicalities around where you work as well as the mindset, tools and processes needed to make hybridity a core part of your company strategy. This is where we’re seeing more and more businesses needing support and why places like Huckletree are playing a greater role as part providers and part advisors, helping companies with the space to work from as well as talent programmes, consultant support and a network to learn from.

Fundamentally, while the route to the future of work is underway, it’s also in a constant state of evolution, an energising and exciting prospect. The flex workspace sector is thriving, and physical spaces are going to play a meaningful role in providing a place of focus and human interaction. They will be the mecca for your team to sync ideas and collaborate toward business goals.

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Get in touch with us to find your next place of growth.