Analysts and experts alike have proclaimed that the office is dead and remote working will be the inevitable future for most companies. Still, many workers are quite eager to return to the office and companies should accommodate those needs.
In a services-driven economy, organizations should be concerned about losing “intangible capital” which refers to knowledge and skills that cannot be passed to colleagues in a remote work environment.
Demand for flexible workspaces has started increasing in recent months as well, with many companies seeking offices outside of major cities and workers looking to avoid long commutes. However, this shift is not synonymous with the “death of the office.”
Still, there is a real reason why many companies flock to certain areas of the country, such as technology firms and Silicon Valley. Companies want to be surrounded by like-minded competitors and open the door to collaboration.
“I find an economically important effect of cluster size on an inventor’s productivity,” said Enrico Moretti, author of Berkley’s research titled Effect of High-Tech Clusters on the Productivity of Top Inventors. “An inventor moving…. a small cluster to a large cluster enjoys an increase in annual productivity, as measured by the number of patents produced in a year or number of citations.”
Overall, if a company wants to maintain a work environment that nurtures creativity, innovation and productivity, having an office dedicated to trading ideas is essential.
