The new president of the British Council for Offices (BCO) has declared that she does not expect there to be a “mandated” return to pre-pandemic working models which compelled people to attend their place of employment every day.

And she said people now want to spend time in “inspiring” places when connecting with colleagues in person.

Despina Katsikakis, an executive partner at global commercial property firm Cushman & Wakefield, said blended models giving people the scope to work from home along with opportunities to interact with colleagues in person will be the future of office life.

Ms Katsikakis was speaking to The Herald following a visit to Glasgow, where she led a panel debate at Skypark on the future of the workplace and how it will be shaped for the coming generations.

The property leader described Glasgow as a “very exciting place” where there are “always ideas about how the city can do more to attract occupiers and talent”.

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Ms Katsikakis said: “The discussion was really around what kind of workplaces are the future of Glasgow and the next generation of talent. That was very interesting. There was a lot of discussion around what it is. Why do people want to go somewhere? What is the role of the office? What is the role of cities?

“Increasingly, everyone agrees that people want to connect with other people. They want to be with other people. They want to have flexibility in how and when and where they work, but social connection continues to be a significant driver of place.

“Mentoring and learning, and particularly for younger people, having guidance and learning expertise from colleagues becomes very important.”

Ms Katsikakis highlighted UK banking giant Barclays' “world class” Buchanan Wharf campus on the south banks of the Clyde, which is home to around 5,000 staff, and the Glasgow City Innovation District, as exemples of the type of working environments that adere to the blueprint of the future.

She said: “This whole idea of bringing together a much more blended environment of live, work, play and innovate becomes really important in how you accelerate growth as well as improve productivity. That is really important. If you look at what they (Innovation District) are doing in putting in place infrastructure developments, as well as a combination of more prominent projects alongside student housing and activation and events, [it] brings that diversity of investment together.

The Herald:

Despina Katsikakis, president, British Council for Offices

“At the other end of the spectrum, if you look at what Barclays have done in Glasgow, they have really created a hub for their technology innovation teams, a world-class building and destination for their people. I think those are two very different examples of how you are seeing some really interesting activity in Glasgow.”

Ms Katsikakis noted that the panel during the debate at Skypark had underlined the “importance of physical place and coming together with other people for well-being”.

“Isolation and working from home can lead to a lot of mental health challenges and feeling disconnected and not part of a community,” she said.

“I suppose the challenge then is, in a world where you want to have those things happen, but you also want to have choice and flexibility, that occupiers are looking more to their landlords and to the city to provide places that are inspiring. That give them the flexibility to bring people together for events or gatherings for collaboration.

“I think this is a very interesting and important shift in how you can reimagine and repurpose existing space to create more inspiring and vibrant environments in cities.”

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Asked if the prolonged periods of home working during the pandemic had heightened the need for people to come together, Ms Katsikakis said: “Absolutely. We collected a lot of data during the pandemic and one of the big issues was people’s sense of being trusted to work remotely at the start of the pandemic, because business carried on, productivity was maintained. And that has created a tremendous amount of expectation of employees to have choice, to be able to create a more balanced lifestyle where they can contribute and do their work, but also have a life at the same time.

“I think it is fair to say that flexibility, whether you call it hybrid working or flexible working, I don’t think we are going to go back from that. Certainly, data universally shows that mandates forcing people to the office are not effective. But creating inspiring places that people want to come to is effective. And it is needed.

“So, when we ask people, yes, they want flexibility and yes, they want to connect with people. They want both. In a way, it is a whole reimagining of our cities as places that allow us to blend very much like the Glasgow City Innovation District – work, live, play, innovate – and bring people together in a much more dynamic and interesting way.”

While there are projects under way in Glasgow city centre that will regenerate older office properties, there are still many vacant units. Landlords may also lack the funding to transform their buildings into the kind of workplaces people want after losing tenants and in turn income during the pandemic.

Ms Katsikakis referenced comments made during the debate by Adam Purvis of Dark Matter Labs, whom she said had highlighted a need for “increased public-private partnerships for integrated regeneration” and to develop “new approaches to financing to unlock new asset classes”.

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“I think that is where there is a real opportunity to deliver impactful change,” she said. “The ability to look at how you can shift investment cycles and redistribute the benefit of the upside of investment across multiple stakeholders, to incentivise people to have a more long-term perspective.”

The BCO is a UK-wide organisation with more than 4,200 members, including investors, developers, designers, engineers, corporate real estate executives, and leasing agents. “Everyone that really touches commercial real estate,” said Ms Katsikakis, who became president in July.

She said: “I actually think it is an incredibly exciting moment in the industry, because we need to rethink, we need to reimagine."

"But we are also seeing the opportunity to create new paradigms for what the role of the office is. What makes resilient and inspiring cities. And bringing together different asset classes to create more walkable districts, destinations.

"One of the interesting aspects that I am seeing is that the value of real estate is moving from looking at a single asset to multiple assets across a district, so it is really that destination that blends the different activities that is going to drive value. And that is incredibly exciting.”