Starting next week, Kerala government officials and representatives of the IT industry will start surveys to identify abandoned or unused properties that can be converted into “micro offices".
Since ‘work from home’ (WFH) has not been a runaway success, there is a growing clamour for ‘work-near-home’ solutions. The ideal work space must be much smaller than IT parks, with just 50-60 seats, and could even be a houseboat or resort. “Since the tourism sector is going to take some time to revive, they could function as premium office spaces for a while," said P.M. Sasi, CEO of state-owned IT Parks.
Sasi said work from home is not a long-term solution. “Productivity was quite high in the first month of WFH, but things have deteriorated since. Of late, issues like power and internet failure, and psychological impacts (of remaining indoors) have cropped up. We are trying to see if we can arrange for something in between the (traditional) office environment and the home."
The state government’s initiative could well be the first step towards discovering the nature of the new office space in post-covid times.
“Whether covid ends today or tomorrow, this rethink is here to stay."
Popular file-transfer service WeTransfer is even experimenting with a virtual office ith online avatars for each employee to see if it social interactions can be activated to an extent.
In Kerala, despite the early public health success, only around 5,000 of the 125,000-strong IT workforce are attending office at IT parks.
In neighbouring Karnataka, residents of upmarket apartment complexes in Whitefield, an eastern suburb of Bengaluru, are demanding community working spaces within the housing society, said Om Chaudhary, chief executive, FIRE Capital, a real estate fund. “A business centre-like facility is a necessity for all new developments. Work might still be anchored to a particular office, whether one goes once a week or once a month. But I don’t see how the old office can remain."
Anant Maringanti, director, Hyderabad Urban Lab, a multidisciplinary urban research centre, said a rethink on offices will also have larger ramifications on urban forms and how the economic flows and transport corridors of cities function.
“It’s very hard to read the tea leaves right now. Every city is still trying to figure out what kinds of things could work," Maringanti said.
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