Business

According to WeWork Colombia, home-office doesn't represent competition for the company

General manager at WeWork Colombia told La Republica newspaper that the company has been working on decentralization and flexibility, the future of work, according to her

London, United Kingdom - September 21, 2019: A view of the Wework co-sharing office spaces on Bishopsgate street In London
Photo: Michel Mond/ Shutterstock
  • General manager at WeWork Colombia told Colombian newspaper La Republica that coworking model offers easiness for companies to return to their activities without incurring greater expenses;
  • The executive said that WeWork Colombia increased the portfolio and has two openings scheduled for 2020.

With remote work on the rise since the beginning of social isolation measures, what space the coworking model will fill in the post-pandemic, as companies start to consider bringing staff back to offices? For Karen Scarpetta, general manager at WeWork Colombia, the pandemic means a new possibility for this business model. The executive gave an interview to Colombian newspaper La Republica this Friday.

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“COVID has made us rethink, decentralization and flexibility are the future of work. These are two factors that WeWork has redesigned to meet the new reality,” she said. According to Scarpetta, the coworking model offers easiness for companies to return to their activities without incurring greater expenses.

[home-office] It’s not a competition neither for WeWork nor for the real estate market, which is neither flexible nor does it have the possibility of decentralizing, but WeWork has. It allows each person who is a member to move freely through the buildings, if we have one closer to our home, that should be the logic, think of alternative models to avoid transportation, have flexibility to dedicate ourselves to our children at home and return to economic productivity, which must be gradual, and not excluding.

Karen Scarpetta, general manager at WeWork Colombia, in an interview with La republica newspaper

WeWork’s general manager also stressed that the global losses of the company during Q1, reported by Softbank in May, didn’t affect the Colombian division at the same proportion. “We are in different contexts. In Colombia we launched new locations, the portfolio grows to 13 buildings in different cities (Bogotá, Medellín, and Barranquilla) and the growth phases of the markets have a direct impact on financial results. We increased the portfolio and we still have two openings pending in 2020.”

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