When I was 18, I went on my first ever girls’ holiday with friends to Torremolinos. Now to set the scene, this is in the early 1980’s, and Torremolinos like many Spanish holiday resorts, was awash with Timeshare representatives doing their best sales pitch. Now for younger readers, this whole concept might be new, but you bought one or two weeks in an apartment block that you could then trade your weeks, or resort by paying a supplement for peak times and seasons.
For those of my age group, then I am sure the word "timeshare" conjures up images of brick like mobile phones, slick suits, bleached blonde hair and Kajagoogoo blaring from every bar. However, you tried to avoid them. They blocked your space trying to sell you their timeshare.
Now on our second day, we got accosted by a good-looking lad who offered us free sangria to sit through his time share presentation. Well, we were going for drinks anyway, so why not! To cut a very long story short, for the rest of the week, this became our afternoon pastime. A different rep and a different block, same outcome, free drinks! And when they asked if we wanted to buy, we would say we were 17!
So, at the BEC, you can imagine the teams surprise when I went in and said I think we should sell timeshare at the BEC! Luckily, they heard me out! We all know that the role of the office has changed in the pandemic. Businesses are increasingly seeing the benefits of remote working and this will influence the workspace market. A recent survey of staff working for a large corporate which asked do they wish to return to Canary Wharf, had 80% of staff saying no they would prefer to work remotely. However, that does not work for all businesses, and as an innovative workspace provider, we need to be able to meet the changing needs of clients. So, welcome to office timeshare!
Office timeshare at the BEC will allow businesses to have the benefit of a private office, but on a flexible contract basis. In essence, you can buy from 1 – 3 days per week every month over a six-month period.
Let me explain. Company A uses the office Monday and Tuesday every week, and company B uses the office Wednesday to Friday every week. Now you may be thinking what about COVID-19 and infection? Well, the BEC has been dealing with that for a year, and our cleaning regimes are tried and tested, so no adverse risk.
You may be thinking what the benefits of office time sharing, why not continue to work from home…Timesharing allows businesses to have both a physical office environment and a flexible working policy without wasting money on office space that sits empty for periods of time. Timesharing can be a solution for businesses better suited to ‘real life’ client meetings or those who need to collaborate. Having designated ‘office days’ can re-introduce that much needed routine, but still supporting the new way we all work flexibly making it easier for people to transition to a return from having everyone at home all of the time.
Maintaining an office presence demonstrates to employees that you still value team culture and a return to that much needed human bonding we have all missed so much. Office time can help kindle that feeling of belonging that may have missing from a fully remote team whilst still giving employees access to that flexibility remote working offers.
Ironically, I am writing this blog from home, but I do time share 3 days in the office, 2 days at home. I wanted some post-COVID-19 reality, and this is working for me and the rest of the leadership team. Now Alexa play ‘Too Shy’ by Kajagoogoo 😊
If you're interested in office time share, then you can find out more at https://beccic.co.uk/our-spaces/
