Corporate employee profiles who benefit the most from coworking environments (2015)

This 2015 conference deck presented Neo-Nomade’s study of corporate employees using coworking spaces. Baptiste Broughton described the research as an assessment of how alternative working arrangements could benefit companies, against the stated context that 6% of coworkers originated from large corporations. The eight-month experiment involved 108 employees who volunteered to use 40 available workspaces, with Schneider Electric, Colliers International, EDF and La Fonderie shown as participating companies. The visible results reported that 65% of employees experienced greater happiness at work, 70% became more efficient and 64% reduced their commuting time. The presentation concluded with implementation lessons for employers considering similar trials. It recommended offering employees a broad choice of spaces and treating deployment as an experiment, with room to test and learn. It also advised enrolling employees early through profiling, developing participants as ambassadors, and connecting workspace initiatives to wider changes in workstyle, tools and flexible-desk policies. A final recommendation concerned matching employee profiles and changing daily needs with suitable spaces on demand. The deck therefore combined headline employee outcomes with practical guidance for structuring and expanding a corporate coworking programme.

Key findings

• The eight-month experiment involved 108 volunteer employees and made 40 workspaces available.
• The study reported increased happiness at work for 65% of employees and greater efficiency for 70%.
• The study reported decreased commuting time for 64% of employees.

Presented by Baptiste Broughton, Neo-Nomade, at Coworking Europe 2015