Flexible Offices, Managed Offices, Serviced Offices, Coworking spaces and Innovation Hubs; these are some of the popular terms and offerings available to businesses looking to better their office space in a post pandemic world. What makes these spaces so appealing and successful? The Community Management teams.

Outside of the obvious benefits of flexible rental terms, reduced costs and managed services, there are huge considerations to make when companies look to maximise their time in the office. What has become increasingly obvious in the past 18 months, is that the majority of businesses will adopt a more flexible working pattern, likely including one or two days working from home (dependant on your role and need to be on-site). This means companies must maximise their time in the office by finding a space that will help to build  company culture, connect a likeminded community of businesses and even, provide business support programmes and facilities that accelerate a company’s success. All of these services are curated and provided by the excellent Community Management teams dedicated to going above and beyond for their members.

It’s been a tough year for staff across all hospitality related sectors, including office hospitality. Redundancy, furlough, uncertainty, lack of new vacancies; these have been the fears and reality of many great, highly skilled people over the past year. Equally, a large proportion of people have remained at the office ensuring a COVID safe working environment for their remaining members, as well as innovating their services to predict the future of the office. Thankfully, the past few months have shown great positives for flex space operators and staff alike. Here’s a few positive research highlights:

• · 75% of landlords expect tenants to seek more flexible terms, increasing the demand for flex space (Savills)
• · April to August 2020 figures claim that 89% of businesses are looking for serviced solutions (FreeOfficeFinder)
• · Flex providers seeing a clear increase in foot traffic through buildings across London
• · Flex space market grew by 4% during 2020 despite the pandemic (Instant Offices)
• · Community and Centre Management based vacancies within the sector have increased
• · Provider, Office Space in Town, report viewings are up 30% and deals are up 115% on May 2019

Traffic within flex spaces has massively increased, enquiries are through the roof, expansion plans have restarted and vacancies are becoming far more frequent. Community Management teams have done a great job this year so, let’s take a moment to appreciate the great work achieved by Community teams in the face of a global pandemic!

Working within Community Management and Business Centre Operations is a varied role where no two days are the same. Their skills are broad across hospitality, FM, relationship building, events, business management and much more. It’s an exciting job role that attracts great individuals who love to bring a smile to the faces of their members. It’s also incredibly rewarding to see their community of businesses thrive, especially when they’ve played a part in their achievements by fostering a productive environment that promotes workplace happiness.

Thank you to my network and everyone else within the flexible office sector who make our offices a great place to be. You’re doing an excellent job and I’m excited to continue finding top talent to join your teams.

Cameron MacRae

Head of Flexible Office Recruitment

In this blog, I focus on the meaning of the word ‘training and the many benefits it can bring overall. Taking a fresh perspective, I discuss the importance of training, its purpose and how it can assist us in the long run, both personally and in the workplace.

The word ‘training’ is used a lot nowadays but what does it actually mean, and what is the point of ‘training’?

Well, whether we like it or not, we actually undergo training every day without even realizing it! Training is another word for ‘learning’, so every time you learn something new, you are undergoing a form of ‘training’ to be prepared for next time.

Now back in the day, you would probably have got an email from your boss with something along the lines of ‘You have been booked to attend a training seminar on X date to learn about Y’ and I bet this hardly filled you with excitement. So how have things changed? I give to you the world of E-Learning!

Even before the Pandemic hit and we were all stuck at home, E-Learning was on the rise. The ability to complete training at your own pace, in your own time through a website platform and still come out with a certificate or qualification at the end.

“But surely you are not getting the same benefit as being in classroom seminar and are limited to what you learn?“ I hear you say.

When I was studying for my CIPD 2 years ago, the course was for one year and it was all through an E-learning platform. Every month we would have ‘Tutor Sessions’ where we would speak to our tutor about our assessments, or any questions we had with our coursework. In between those sessions, we could still contact our assessor with anything we needed, and they would come back, if not the same day, then by the next day. The tutor and the learning platform were so supportive and attentive, I would almost argue it was better than sitting in a classroom. We would receive weekly emails from our tutors just to say, ‘well done!’ or ask how our week was going and if we needed any help with that week’s coursework. It gave us such a confidence boost to get through our studies and pass our assessments. The platform itself had a lot of interactive tools, and there was even a virtual graduation day! So, I would go so far as to say that the world of E-Learning could completely overtake the ‘Classroom Seminar’ training ethos one day.

As an organisation, training can often fall into becoming a  ‘box ticking’ exercise of needing to put people on training because they have to. Often forgetting the key element about training which is to learn. By investing that time in organising training for someone, you are investing in their career progression, knowledge, and their confidence. It is a great feeling when you have attended some training and then in the work place a question arises and you are able to answer it because you learnt about it when you completed that course your boss enrolled you on a month ago.

A huge part of my job is to write Training Courses for site staff. Yes, there are the topics that ‘have to be covered’ and believe me, I understand learning about Health and Safety or Fire Safety Legislation might not be the most exciting topic in the world, but we need it so how do you make the ‘Not so fun topics’ in a training course more exciting? Here are a few suggestions:

•  Images – The Brain is programmed to identify knowledge by imagery. A person may not remember what was written underneath that image completely, but they will remember the image attached to it. By making your training as visual as possible will help trigger the brain into thinking ‘Why was that image there and what did it mean?’ therefor enabling to trigger the information that went alongside it.

• Quizzes – I am not talking about big scary assessments. I mean every few training slides, have a simple quiz of about 4 – 5 questions that covers the last few previous slides. The reason for this is again, it is triggering the brain to start working to respond to the questions asked rather than reading 15 slides and then trying to cover the whole training in an assessment at the end. By having lots of small quizzes throughout the training helps the person to remember/be prepared for when they are asked about it later on.

Videos – If you can break up your training with videos the better. No one wants to just click through the slides and read. Videos kick start the brain again with visuals and imagery. The person conducting the training will be more likely to remember the visuals from a video rather than a training slide.

• Discussion Boards – Have a ‘Discussion Section’ where users can see what previous people completing the course have commented. This helps to break down any barriers or fear a person may have when completing the course because they will see other people have completed it before them and can springboard off of their answers rather than feeling solely responsible for their one and only answer.

I hope this has given you an insight into the world of training. Next time you are booked to attend a training course, don’t shy away from it - embrace it. You never know what you will learn and when it might come in handy!

In this blog, I discuss ways to help businesses reduce retention and maintain a better workplace for their employees, ultimately optimising staffing costs through actions. 

As a recruiter working in property management I am speaking with various businesses and candidates across the sector on a daily basis, 2020 has shown a huge fluctuation with many staff changing jobs.

Some of the common challenge’s employees have experienced in joining companies during lockdown are:

• ● Feeling isolated
• ● Not having a team to learn from
• ● Not having the support and the daily interactions and general chats you have in the office

This creates loss of confidence for some, feelings of self-doubt and often leads to stress and anxiety.

It's never been more critical for Managing Agents to keep the right people on board. Given the challenges with COVID-19, high staff turnover, and an abundance of unfilled job vacancies, employers must act now to ensure that they have the right qualified employees to deliver the highest quality services possible.

Although there is no easy answer, I have started having a think about some of the ways the management team at PMR and myself a Team Leader have been keeping our staff happy and I came up with pointers that will help you keep your employees:

Get a better understanding on why people leave

Exit interviews are an excellent way to discover why someone is leaving. Appraisals, group meetings, and employee surveys or questionnaires are other ways to learn how people are feeling. Both will assist you in finding any troublesome areas and taking the necessary action.

Give recognition and provide suggestions

Offer praise to an employee who is doing a good job. Offer them constructive and positive feedback if they're having trouble and assist them in meeting the appropriate level. All of these factors contribute to employee motivation, which helps retention.

Online team quiz every Friday

Being able to disconnect from work tasks are important, we arranged a team quiz every Friday which

resulted in everyone coming together, bonding and keeping the team morale high in the company.

Regular gestures from management

Our director has regularly sent us surprises throughout the year, ranging from delicious brownies, easter eggs, make your own cookie dough, to make your own cocktail at home which certainly brought a big smile to everyone's faces.

Weekly online meetings and daily catch ups

I have zoom meetings with my team twice a week and phone calls daily, one of the meetings I have recently introduced is a ‘team wellness walks in your local park’. My team are scattered across London and Essex, once a week we have a group phone call and walk to our local park. We have a general catch up, work updates and we discuss what we are finding great about working from home and any challenges the team are facing and how between us we can help one another. Not only has this helped release endorphins and increase our vitamin D intake and getting the daily steps in, but it has also brought us closer as a team.

Provide Growth Opportunities

Ascertain that the employer is supportive of your professional growth goals. Creating an

internal mentoring programme is one way to do this.

In-house training programmes that familiarise workers with on-site technology, property

management software, and departmental processes are excellent tools for ensuring that

employees have the trust they need to provide excellent customer service.

Transparency

Lockdown has been a challenging time for everyone and being transparent and honest with

your employees helps them feel valued and respected.

To summarise you'll need to build a culture that promotes professional and personal

development to avoid losing talent and incurring the high costs of employee turnover.

Encourage people to give you suggestions. To make work more effective, provide excellent

training and technology. Inquire of the workers what would assist them in better managing

their workload and reducing job-related stress.

Your company would be more likely to achieve its own goals in the long run if you take the

time to find out what your workers need and what improvements the company should make

to meet their goals.

If you want to learn more about this subject, the PMR team will provide you with advice and assist

you in developing a successful retention strategy.

Evie Hepburn

Team Leader