Even in a time of growing remote and virtual working setups, workplace traffic has grown over 300% since May of 2020, with cities such as Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington DC leading the charge for return to work efforts. Moreover, as it turns out, physical workspaces will also remain a vital and vibrant part of tomorrow's working world and play a critical role in helping enterprises foster teamwork, collaboration, and culture going forward. However, as we point out in new book FUN AT WORK, research indicates that these workspaces will look radically different from what we see today, pointing towards growing demand for a more flexible, on-demand future for commercial real estate. Spurred by the rise of new hybrid working models and growing digital transformation, tomorrow's workplace will accordingly revolve around more on-demand workspaces and office-as-a-service solutions — allowing you to grab desk spaces, event spaces, meeting rooms and more as needed.

In effect, people will always want to be around other people, and as many legal departments and corporations are discovering, the community-building aspects of workplaces remain critical to keeping employees excited, engaged, and retained. That said, simultaneously, in an age of constant disruption and upheaval, companies also need to adopt more flexible approaches to building and operating their businesses, and consider giving workers more autonomy to book desks, conference rooms, and meeting spaces on-demand. Noting this, the shape of future workspaces may be different than those of today. For example, the design of these locations may be smaller in nature, offer more single-use pods and rooms, or involve more sharing of resources between different companies. By way of example, it's less a question of square footage than one of considering how many rooms, desks, or parking spots that you might need on-demand as situations dictate.