The children of the revolution

“What online video games do you play?” Believe it or not, according to Wouter Oosting, CBRE’s senior director for workplace strategies and design in the Netherlands, this is now a question posed at the job interviews of younger recruits. And indeed the expectations of this younger generation dominated much of the Workplace Strategies conference organised jointly by CBRE and Eurobuild CEE on October 25th at the InterContinental Hotel in Warsaw. Employers ask such questions because in games such as Battlefield 4 rankings are assigned to players by fellow gamers, providing a yardstick measure of a candidate’s leadership capabilities. But the so-called generation ‘Y’ is not the only driver revolutionising the workplace. CBRE is urging us to abandon our workstations. At any one time 30 pct of the desks in a traditional firm are empty, providing an opportunity for reducing office space. In the future, we will be logging into the first free computer. Meeting areas, team rooms, social areas as well as concentration rooms will all be clearly separated in the building. Is this a science fiction scenario? No – such changes have already been implemented in the Netherlands and now CBRE in Poland is also changing its current office layout. Jonathan Steer, the director of building consultancy at CBRE Poland, went on to explain the challenges of implementing such solutions in Poland, where culturally people tend to be individualistic, hard-working and accepting of inequality – but also hierarchical and suspicious of change. Małgorzata Jasińska, the CEE corporate accounts director for the Hays recruitment agency, explained that what employees value most in their working environments are the ease of travelling to work as well as restaurants and shops nearby. Technology is a driver, without which none of these new practices would be possible. Artur Czerwiński, the business development director of Cisco Systems Poland, talked of the benefits of just one piece of new technology: video conferencing equipment. The use of teleconferencing is growing exponentially and is being used ever more to interconnect an increasingly globalised world. Joanna Mroczek, the director of research and consultancy at CBRE Poland, revealed that Warsaw is one of the top five fastest growing office markets in Europe, just behind cities such as London, Paris and Moscow. Currently vacancy rates stand at around 11 pct, but around 600,000 sqm is now in the pipeline to be delivered by 2016. But what is really shaking up the Warsaw office market are the three ring roads to be completed by 2020 as well as the second metro line, which is currently under construction. Daniel Bienias, CBRE Poland’s director of global corporate services, painted a picture of offices without server rooms. Firms are moving their data to the cloud and no longer require their own computer facilities. The day was concluded with a panel discussion in which Wouter Oosting returned to the stage with Ireneusz Gawędziński, the associate director for building consultancy at CBRE Poland, Devin Saylor, the sustainability director of Skanska Commercial Development Europe, Jarosław Rutecki, the director of architects Studio Quadra and Georges Roux, an architect with the SteelCase studio. Ireneusz Gawędziński then spoke of how and why the older generation would accept the coming changes. Most of us may still sit behind office desks, but the revolution is already upon us.