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Coworking Is Back: An Interview With Liz Elam


Coworking is back and an on the climb to being better than ever.  GCUC founder, Liz Elam addresses how coworking has prevailed, what the future holds for the industry, and GCUC’s upcoming NYC event.

Just as most offices around the world did, the coworking world almost completely went dark in 2020. Their physical spaces did anyway. The pandemic saw many fledgling providers close their doors permanently while others found ways to pivot and support their communities in a virtual format. Combining new offerings with strong financial planning, government programs, and gracious landlords allowed most strong coworking communities to survive.

Jeff Joerling sat down with Liz Elam, founder of the GCUC community, and the global coworking conference. Before launching GCUC Liz was the Founder and CEO of Link Coworking in Austin. GGUC has entered its ninth year and has produced over 32 events around the globe. Like most events, last year saw the group pivot to an online format. But later this month, the GCUC conference is back, live and via a new virtual tool introduced by Convene.

Liz, how did coworking survive?
Blood, sweat, and tears, and then more tears. Why it is surviving…. the passion of the founders and of the members. There’s a real love for the spaces folks belong to, they were really supportive and understanding that this was beyond anyone’s control. Many invented new business models, relying on their offerings beyond just the physical space. Many operators found new and inventive ways to keep their members engaged with the community. We saw drive up printing and wifi access to massive online communities form on the fly.

Are we going to see a comeback, I hope?
100%. No, 200%. Not overnight. But coworking is going to be bigger than ever. I’m not just being all rah rah, it’s coming. We all just went through the biggest work from home social experiment imaginable. It showed us yes we can be productive not being tied to the office. And that working only at home has just as many challenges. So workers have no intention of going back to the office. At the same time, working from home just isn’t working for everyone. A home office is a privilege and one not everyone has.

You think they’ll turn to coworking?
I know they’ll turn to coworking. It’s happening. The growth is coming from large companies reaching out finding new places for their employees. They’re looking for safe environments to keep their employees engaged, motivated and safe. This is leading to some interesting hybrid models. Employees can come into the corporate office one day, work from home the next, then maybe a couple days at their favorite coworking space. May they use coworking just for meetings and still work at home. Or the corporate office for meeting and coworking for individual work. The dream of activity based work is quickly taking hold, spread between different space. Employees have a voice and they’re voting with their feet. If you don’t give them options, they will leave. They don’t want to commute so rural and suburban are already on wait lists. This is leading to hub and spoke business models, where a coworking space may have a large downtown space and several smaller localized spaces around a given city. We’ll see even more when the newly appointed GSA contract hits.

 

To read the rest of the interview, click here and check out our friends over at Work Design Magazine. 

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