The size of companies shapes the way in which they plan to resume work in office buildings, commented key speakers during the post-COVID-19 workplace strategies panel of CEE Property Forum 2021, Property Forum's first real-life event back in Vienna since 2019 which was attended by over 400 people coming from countries all over the region and beyond.

As summer has come to an end, employers across the world have to decide where they want their employees to work from going forward. The keyword for the future will be flexibility as large employers around the globe are embracing not only working from home but also multi-location workplace strategies.

Colliers introduced its latest research report about the post-COVID workplace as a continuation of its research after the report it produced a year ago leveraging data from over 5,000 respondents globally, evaluating the dramatic impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the way we work.

COVID-19 has completely redefined what office means and companies have a lot of thinking to do when it comes to finding the right location for their workforce to work from. Companies are increasingly turning towards flex offices and according to Business Wire, the global flex office space market is expected to grow from $7.97 billion in 2020 to $8.14 billion in 2021 at an annual growth rate of 2.1% before reaching $13.03 billion by 2025.

Experts participating at Portfolio's recent FM & Hybrid Office conference in Budapest discussed the present and future of the office market. The past 18 months have started a multitude of changes as WFH, the sub-leasing of office space, the change in internal configurations, the return to offices, sustainable management and changing tenant requirements have led to a substantial transformation in the lives of office market players. Experts agree that hybrid office use is currently the most likely outcome, as only a few businesses have adopted WFH full-time.

A recent webinar organised by digital workspace solutions provider workcloud24 hosted three leading experts that shared their point of view on how people will work in the post-COVID-19 period backed up by surveys they recently conducted.

Savills has examined both employee-driven and occupier/employer-driven factors to assess which global cities may see a faster transition to hybrid working post-COVID-19. From an office occupier perspective, New York, Paris, London, Berlin and Frankfurt may be primed for a faster transition to hybrid working, given comparatively high office costs, already flexible working practices and extended lockdowns, while less flexible working cultures in Mumbai, Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City mean that any transition to hybrid working may be slower.

Digital workspace solutions platform workcloud24 is organising a series of online events dedicated to the future of work after COVID-19. Property Forum is an official partner of the next event, to be held on 27 May 2021.

As more people get vaccinated and offices are reopening, companies need to make a decision on how to manage their workforce. Employees that worked remotely for much of the past year will now circulate between work from home and commuting to the office. But do employees really want to work from home or from the office 5 days a week? CEE-based flex office provider New Work believes that the future belongs to flexible workplaces everywhere and they see demand for hundreds of flex office locations across each country in the region.

Property Forum’s latest online panel aimed to answer some of the many questions around the future of workplaces. Four experts, with the moderation of Csanád Csűrös, CEO of Property Forum, discussed workplace strategies for the post-COVID-19 world and their implications on the real estate industry.