News and Views | The Great Room

Path to Greatness: Workspace that’s as Agile as Your Business

October 17, 2023April 26, 2022 by Jessica Rose Brian

Flexibility is the way of the future in the world of work, and on-demand space opens up a whole host of opportunities for businesses. Forget downsizing or upsizing. Now, it’s all about rightsizing by creating a bespoke office space that supports your company mission, and your people. Find out how coworking can help you build an agile business by providing a flexible base to work from.

In the world of workplace solutions, it’s becoming increasingly clear that cookie-cutter offices just won’t cut it.

What happens when your business suddenly expands? When you take on a new project, and you need to hire three new people, but you don’t have any room in your office? What happens if local restrictions mean your business suddenly has to downsize? You’re left with wasted office space – and you’re paying for it with money that could be put to far better use elsewhere.

Evidently, one-size-fits-all solutions do not fit all.

The Great Room One Taikoo Place, Hong Kong - Dedicated Office — *The Great Room One Taikoo Place, Hong Kong*

What really suits your team depends on the size of your team, the nature of your work, where your team is, how you work and when you work. It also depends on factors that are outside your control – like pandemic restrictions, economic patterns, and consumer behaviour.

What you need is space that can be rightsized for the needs of your business.

Rightsizing and how it supports your business

Every office provides a mix of individual space – workstations, private offices – and group and amenity space. Individual space probably makes up 30 to 40% of your square footage, yet it gets used most of the time (say, 70% of the time).

Group space and your amenity space, those spaces where people gather, make up 60 to 70% of your square footage, yet they only get used 30 to 40% of the time (according to VenturePoint). These are the spaces in which staff print documents, where they drink coffee, have meetings, and so on.

The Great Room Raffles Arcade, Singapore - Workhall — *The Great Room Raffles Arcade, Singapore*

Rightsizing happens when you balance group, amenity and individual space against office costs. By rightsizing, you maximise on business savings by only paying for what you need, while creating the ideal conditions in which to optimise employee performance.

Factors to consider in the rightsizing process are square footage; lease terms; usage data (the nature of your spaces, how many of them there are, how that space is used, which spaces are used and which aren’t, plus headcount); and running costs.

Coworking spaces offer flexible solutions for the agile business

Coworking spaces like The Great Room provide adaptable solutions that enable your business to operate in the most agile way possible. With a coworking space, you can work with flex-lease clauses. Your business can begin with a rental contract based on monthly or yearly terms. You can start with a certain number of desks and/or a certain amount of office space, with the option to increase this as your lease progresses, depending on headcount and business needs.

The flexible nature of the coworking space contract was a huge support to PALO IT as their own business changed through the shifts of the pandemic. PALO IT needed to expand their team to more than 50 employees in 2022, and they needed an office for them, pronto. “The Great Room customised a tailormade space for us,” says Jing Lei, Managing Director for PALO IT in Hong Kong. The Great Room split an existing 50-person office in two, enabling PALO IT to slot into one half and accommodate their whole team. This supported our move to a larger space without the hassle.”

As a global innovation consultancy and agile software development company whose mission is to help companies use “tech as a force for good”, PALO IT understands the value of adaptability better than most.

“Businesses have no choice but to transform under the current situation,” says Lei. “Everyone is looking for expert support to structure their new ways of working; support that also meshes with their corporate governance. For instance, implementing an agile-targeted operating model (ATOM) to accelerate transformation into a data-driven organisation. Also, to facilitate teams through automation.”

This is what PALO IT does best, so it’s no surprise that “market demand has accelerated our business’s growth,” says Lei. “The Great Room has been a great help with both our internal and external events, and in welcoming our guests who come to our office.”

*The Great Room Ngee Ann City, Singapore*

PALO IT needed a collaborative environment where they could welcome clients and other guests, and courteous staff to support this. “It’s comfortable, friendly, and in a great location that’s close to our clients and partners,” agrees Lei. “Not to mention the great staff at The Great Room!”

It’s here that The Great Room excels: its conveniently located venues; the courteous, helpful staff; and the mix of communal and private meeting spaces – from the central ‘Great Room’, which is luxuriously appointed – to the meeting rooms, large and small.

Get customised support for your business at The Great Room

The Great Room also provides all the amenities as part of the coworking package. There’s barista-level, artisan coffee, internet, furniture, access to office equipment such as printers and more. By streamlining the costs associated with group and amenity space, The Great Room, like other coworking space providers, helps businesses balance their office outlays. In this way, The Great Room helps organisations rightsize, and with ease.

The Great Room has seven locations across Asia’s gateway cities. All are located in prime neighbourhoods, with a range of flexible options available for businesses keen to grow but struggling to figure out how to do so. The Great Room’s expert staff are also on hand to provide advice on how to customise your workspace to suit your business needs.

Find out how we can help your business adapt to the flexible future of work.
Select the city below for more details.

In Great Demand – Making Flexibility Your Superpower

October 17, 2023March 10, 2022 by Jessica Rose Brian

Flexibility is the way of the future in the world of work, and on-demand space opens up a whole host of opportunities for businesses taking a hybrid approach.

When it comes to work trends for 2022, flexibility is the name of the game. People are choosing – in fact, many are demanding – flexibility; in where they work, when they work and how they work.

Flex is the way forward for everyone from start-ups to established organisations

This shift shows that hybrid, flexible working arrangements aren’t just for start-ups and solopreneurs. It’s not simply for those who are bootstrapping their business, or who are trying to save on costs (although that’s a definite benefit of flexible arrangements). It’s for any and every business that wants to be agile and that wants to expand and contract its workspace based on their needs that month, that week – or even that day.

Take OnTheList, for example. The members-only luxury flash sales company didn’t need a full service office; what they needed was somewhere to host client meetings in Hong Kong’s dynamic Quarry Bay district. “I was looking for a space that could accommodate different needs: meeting clients for coffee to catch up in a formal yet cosy environment with coffee and tea available; somewhere relatively quiet and with private space for business meetings,” says Mathilde Betinas, APAC Business Development Manager for OnTheList.

Ethica Wines, meanwhile, was expanding into the Asia-Pacific region from the US and they needed a Bangkok base for their Regional Sales Manager, Diego Sebastian Todone. “Being the only person from my company in the region and having to travel most of the time (in a normal world), I wanted to find a place that would cover all the needs of a full-scale office with the flexibility that a shared office offers,” says Todone.

“When I was looking for a place to use as an everyday base, I came across The Great Room. When I visited, it was love at first sight!”

For Todone, The Great Room offered all the advantages of having your own office. “It gives me access to concierge and printers, meeting rooms, a high-speed network, and a beautiful space to talk business with clients and partners.”

At the same time, however, a coworking space such as this one does away with the hassles that a traditional office entails: This includes a long-term lease, buying furniture and office equipment and committing to larger floor space to make room for facilities like meeting rooms and pantry areas that are necessary, yet will be underutilised. With a luxury coworking space like The Great Room, you shift to variable costs that you can control.

On-demand workspace supports greater flexibility

The best part? You get to choose what your costs look like by working with The Great Room to create a tailor-made package you can change whenever you need to. The Great Room offers a whole realm of on-demand services to support maximum flexibility.

You could, for example, choose to combine a private office space with hotdesking, like Bangkok-based luxury hospitality group AZOTELS does. This hybrid arrangement gives AZOTELS staff the flexibility to work in a quiet space when they need to focus, or to mingle when they want a more dynamic vibe. They can also purchase The Great Room’s Day Passes on-demand, when they have more staff coming into the office.

Perhaps, like Ethica Wines, you may want to work flexibly and meet your clients somewhere that feels aligned with your brand – somewhere that evokes five-star style. The Great Room’s Hot Desk memberships are the perfect solution, giving you access to the Workhall and Drawing Room, where the elegant surroundings, coupled with an array of lounge seating options, set the scene for connecting with clients and working productively.

Flexible access to the Drawing Room is part of The Great Room’s appeal for OnTheList. “You can select your working space depending on the number of guests you are expecting: you can go for a small coffee table for a one-on-one catch-up, or you can go for the sofa area for larger gatherings,” says Betinas. And “I can create my remote office space whenever I need I can just walk in with the day pass without having to worry about availability.”

For Ethica (Wines), The Great Room’s premium aesthetic and hospitality mindset suits their needs nicely. “The environment is very work oriented; it’s friendly, but at the same time very professional and upscale. This is really important for (us), as it mirrors the image that we want to give to our customers and partners that visit us at The Great Room,” says Todone. “Anything you need, the staff will always help you with a smile on their face. This is super valuable, because it puts you in the best mood to focus on what you have to do.”

Get customised support for your business at The Great Room

With hybrid ways of working increasingly the modus operandi, these businesses demonstrate just how well on-demand solutions can support their businesses in an era when flexibility is the only way forward. Whether you’re looking for regular desk access, a private office for a few weeks, or a meeting room for that important meeting, or a prestigious corporate address, it’s all possible at The Great Room.

The Great Room has seven locations across Asia’s gateway cities, including five in Singapore. All are located in prime neighbourhoods, with a range of options available – from on-demand space to fixed, private workspace for larger teams. Find out how we can help your business adapt to the future of work. Select your city below to learn more.

Find oUT HOW WE CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS ADAPT TO THE FLEXIBLE FUTURE OF WORK. SELECT THE CITY BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS.

The Great Scheme of Things

July 25, 2024November 2, 2021 by Jessica Rose Brian

For founders trying to focus on the bigger picture, coworking offers fully customisable, hybrid solutions that take care of all the details, so you can focus on what matters.

The last year and a half has been a rollercoaster ride of changes: companies were thrust into remote working, pivoting to operating online almost overnight. Since then, it’s been a push-me-pull-you scenario amid ever-changing distancing and numbers regulations. The constant shift, and the trajectory it ignited for the work-from-anywhere approach, have powered changes that were beginning to happen already, albeit slowly.

Businesses need to adapt their technology, and their people

As Kevin Sneader and Shubham Singhal point out in McKinsey Global Institute’s piece, “The next normal arrives: Trends that will define 2021 – and beyond”, the combination of Covid-19 and advances in digitisation and automation have been a potent one. They quote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who said in April 2020, “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital change in two months.”

We’re not on the other side of this yet — what changes, then, are yet to come? While this is anyone’s guess, the consensus is that businesses need to be ready for change, and they need to be positioned for adaption.

The role of the office plays a significant role here. It looks like hybrid strategies that offer a mix of remote and in-office work are the way forward. As Sneader and Singhal argue, businesses also need to adapt their workforce “to the requirements of automation, digitisation, and other technologies.”

Coworking offers change-ready solutions

Organisations need solutions that reduce the burden: solutions that can adapt to them rather than the other way around. In particular, they need office solutions that are primed for change. This is the benefit of a coworking environment like The Great Room. Offering a mix of hot desking, fixed private offices and meeting space, The Great Room delivers flexibility: you choose the combination you need, and you can sign on for as long or as short a time as you want.

When compared with the rigidity of long-term office leases and fixed floorplates, coworking is a dream. With coworking, you’re no longer paying for empty desks and excess square footage you don’t need because half your staff are working remotely three days a week. At The Great Room, for example, there’s an in-house app that allows team members to book their desks in the office. This takes the load off office managers, and it reduces the risk of team members coming all the way to the office, only to find it’s at full capacity.

How coworking provides uncompromising solutions in real-life scenarios

Let’s look at a real-life example. AZOTELS Hospitality, a high-end hotel group founded by Adrian Zecha, needed a mix of privacy and connection in a vibrant work environment.

The Great Room in Bangkok was able to offer them a hybrid solution that matched their needs perfectly, setting them up with a private office, which supports confidentiality when they need it, as well as space in which to focus.

AZOTELS Hospitality also has hot desks, giving the team space to work in dynamic surroundings when they want to. “The Great Room delivered a turnkey solution that gave our hotel company the ability to scale without the initial overheads costs associated with a more traditional office set-up,” says Leanne Reddie, Commercial Sales & Marketing Director at AZOTELS Hospitality.

Plus, as their team grows, depending on the team’s needs, they can simply add more hot desks into the mix or move to a larger private office. In addition, the hospitality-driven nature of this coworking environment speaks to the AZOTELS Hospitality brand, making The Great Room the perfect partner. Says Reddie, “With the evolution of the working environment in this post pandemic era, The Great Room represents the office of the future.

Coworking provides on-brand settings and on-time support

In this way, The Great Room was able to quickly cater to AZOTELS Hospitality’s needs for a workspace in the right location, and one that felt on-brand. Indeed, this is one of the (many) perks of The Great Room: it’s luxurious enough to represent the quality of your brand to clients and stakeholders.

With facilities such as the ‘great room’ itself – that ultra-comfortable, stylish community space – premium in-house events, the barista-level coffee, as well as wellbeing spaces and outdoor areas at locations such as Afro-Asia, there’s a strong foundation from which to reinforce your brand and build corporate culture, as well as bolster employee engagement. All without management, marketing or HR having to lift a finger.

Support is another key benefit of coworking spaces. Premium coworking environments like The Great Room have expert, in-house support staff that are ready to handle any issues that come up – from helping with VC technology and booking meeting rooms and event spaces to adding extra desks when companies suddenly find unexpectedly high numbers of staff coming into the office.

For many organisations, it’s a weight off their shoulders to have someone else take care of the fit-out and all the admin associated with workspace. And, in the grand scheme of things, in a working world that’s constantly in flux, it’s details like these that make all the difference.

A Workspace That Moves With You

The Great Room by Industrious is coworking inspired by hospitality, with 150+ international locations across APAC, US and Europe where members have access to all workspaces in our global network.

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The Future is Flexible, The Future is Coworking

June 8, 2022October 12, 2021 by Jessica Rose Brian

When it comes to the way we work, the data is clear: the future of work resembles a different beast entirely from the one that it was in 2019. The events of the past year-and-a-half have been largely responsible, leading to a global work experiment that we’ve all participated in. Our findings? Hybrid strategies are the way forward.

The modern workforce wants Flexibility

Hybrid ways of working revolve around arrangements that combine remote and in-office work, facilitated by technology. The exact ratios of office and work-from-anywhere time vary from company to company, but the essence is the same, and for most companies, so are the outcomes. The data indicates that hybrid strategies contribute to engagement and productivity – and that most people prefer working this way. Just 15 percent of Southeast Asian respondents to the EY 2021 Work Reimagined Employee Survey said they want to work from the office full time. Seven in 10 respondents, meanwhile, believe that hybrid work arrangements encourage productivity and creativity.

Similarly, a 2021 Willis Towers Watson survey of employers in the APAC region found that 62% of employers identify flexible work arrangements as a priority; one that could boost the employee experience.

Hybrid arrangements benefit both employers and employees

For employees, flexible working arrangements improve the overall experience of work for a host of reasons. If they’re able to work when, where and how they want, it puts the power back in their hands. With autonomy, people feel more excited about work. Studies have shown that greater engagement can improve presenteeism rates. And, if people work when they want, they’re more likely to focus when they do work

For employers, aside from more engaged, productive workers – which a Gallup study showed can lead to increases in business profits to the tune of 21 percent – flexible work arrangements can also translate to reduced floorplates, leading to massive savings in rent.
As a business leader or owner, you could of course simply rent a smaller, one-company workspace. But that leaves you with no room to grow. There’s no space to scale up, or to scale down, as your workplace needs shift and change.

So why not simply adopt a blanket work-from-home policy? Well, people tend to find working from home a lonely and isolating experience. They crave the human interaction and connection that a shared workspace provides. At the same time, they increasingly shy away from the overly structured, stifling traditional corporate office environment.

Get in touch about customised workspace solutions for your team

Co-working at The Great Room supports flexibility, bolstering business operations and corporate culture

The ideal alternative, then, is a coworking space like The Great Room in Singapore. Here, flexibility has been a key aspect of the modus operandi right from the start. Companies are increasingly realising that coworking spaces provide an effective solution to the demands of the new working environment – and the desires of the modern worker. For organisations in flux – which is every organisations in today’s world – the coworking space facilitates agility.

When a company expands, a coworking space has desks at the ready. When fewer people are in the office – whether due to a pandemic scenario that requires remote work, or because of reduced staffing needs – a coworking space enables you to scale down in a flash, minus fit-out costs, and without incurring the penalties that come when you break an office lease.

Plus, the coworking environment facilitates sharing of resources. You no longer need to fork out for multiple printers, staplers, water coolers, dedicated front desk staff – these are all at your fingertips, courtesy of your coworking provider. The financial benefits are therefore apparent straight away, as well as in the long-term. (For boutique businesses, for example, the financial benefits of choosing a coworking space are significant: they report savings of 25 percent a year.)

For employees, one of the core benefits of a coworking space – and indeed, one of the central tenets of the coworking movement – is community. At The Great Room, for example, there’s a mix of SMEs, established global organisations, solopreneurs and freelancers. All of whom can come together in the coworking space provider’s ‘great room’, a luxe yet comfortable living room-style communal space designed to foster connection, new conversations, new ideas… and a sense of belonging.

While a coworking space offers greatly enhanced opportunities for connection, it also provides privacy benefits on par with those you would find in a traditional single-business office. Coworking spaces are primed to answer confidentiality and security requirements: all you have to do is ask for what you need. At the same time, coworking environments steer away from the pitfalls of the traditional office. Naturally flexible, coworking is the antithesis of rigidity: no more fixed locations, fixed desks or fixed hours. And, since you’re no longer limited to interacting with a small, fixed pool of colleagues, you’re less likely to grapple with groupthink (coming to a consensus just to avoid dissent) or office politics.

By saving companies time and money, and by fostering engagement and productivity, coworking spaces solve a whole host of workplace problems. And, by supporting hybrid working strategies, coworking demonstrates its staying power in the brave new world of work.

Mark Teng, Executive Director of That.Legal LLC

One law firm experienced significant financial and interpersonal benefits when they made the transition from traditional office space to The Great Room. Want to hear their story? [Read more here]

Find out how we can help your business adapt to the flexible future of work.
Select the city below for more details.

Get to know our Director of Enterprise Sales: James Michaud

April 1, 2024July 14, 2021 by Grace

What is your morning hack for a productive day?
Start off the day with some exercise! I would wake up for tennis at 6.30AM, followed by a light swim. Enjoy a cup of double espresso and make sure to listen to music on the way to work.

What is the best $100 or less purchase you have done recently that has upped your game at work?
I recently purchased a Keto app to track my nutrition patterns. Staying fit and healthy keeps me on my game.

If you weren’t the Director of Enterprise Sales, what would you be doing?
Running my own bed and breakfast on an island in the Pacific Ocean.

What is the last book you read that created an impact on you?
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k.

Most adventurous thing you’ve done in your life?
Diving with sharks!

Breaking with Tradition: From Conventional to Co-working

April 1, 2024June 14, 2021 by Jessica Rose Brian

With the traditional idea of ‘the office’ rapidly evolving, outdated inflexible office spaces no longer best serve the needs of forward-thinking teams. Find out how Law Firm THAT.LEGAL has made a break with conventional legal offices by shifting to The Great Room and the surprising benefits they’ve discovered in the process.

For law firm That.Legal, leaving the safety of a corporate office for co-working space at The Great Room was a major shift.

Driven by client confidentiality requirements and old-school internal hierarchies, “Law firms typically choose traditional office spaces,” says Mark Teng, Executive Director of That.Legal LLC.

The legal office model is one that dates back a century. Featuring private offices for directors and senior lawyers, it’s based on the belief that private rooms equal success and status, and that legal work is alone work.

For That.Legal, the impetus to make the change to a luxury shared workspace came as the effects of the pandemic on how they worked began to take shape. “The pandemic changed the way we work,” says Teng.

That.Legal specialises in intellectual property law – not only as a protective measure, but also as a way of helping organisations optimise their intangible assets for commercial gain.

Like a lot of businesses in Asia, they were obliged to work remotely. “The laws didn’t allow us to be at work at all for about 2.5 months,” says Teng.

Luckily, That.Legal is tech-savvy, so they were able to “shut down and set up in our homes within 48 hours,” he says. “Initially our productivity dropped to 80% of what they were pre-COVID, because we were building new habits, but soon after, it increased to 120% … due to savings in commuting time.”

Even in Phases 2 and 3, when not everyone could be in the office at the same time, the rent on their corporate office remained the same. “In 2020, the losses in underutilisation outweighed the financial assistance we were entitled to,” says Teng. “I’m sure we’re not alone in this.

Fortunately, That.Legal’s office lease expired in February this year, giving them the ideal opportunity to reimagine their real estate. Did they still need to subscribe to that conventional office layout, they asked themselves? Or could they fulfill client confidentiality and convey a sense of luxury in a shared working environment?

They decided to find out, moving into a private office space at The Great Room at One George Street that complies with the confidentiality requirements.

Making the change and discovering asset efficiency

Mark Teng, Executive Director – That.Legal LLC

“If COVID taught us anything, it’s that we can adapt,” says Teng.

It turns out adaptation brings with it benefits—some of them unexpected.

Under the traditional, private-office model, if a director doesn’t come in, their office remains empty. This leads to inactive space and spatial inefficiencies. Not so in a co-working space.

The Great Room doesn’t require the same long-term contractual commitment that a traditional office requires. This gives us the flexibility to reconfigure our real estate requirements as the team constitution changes. Expanding the number of desks we have is easy,” says Teng.

Shared workspace and community benefits that prime teams for performance and productivity

That.Legal’s new private office at The Great Room also brings the team together in one space, “breaking down the barriers across ranks and democratising our real estate. Breaking down the physical barriers also dissolves mental barriers,” he says.

As well as bringing the team together physically and demonstrating the collaborative nature of much legal work, The Great Room move has resulted in rental savings of 40%. That.Legal plans to reallocate these savings to human capital, including expanding their team from six to nine people.

The Great Room has seven locations across Asia’s gateway cities situated in prime neighbourhoods, with workspace solutions to fit all sizes and customisations.

Find out how we can help your business adapt to the flexible future of work. Select the city below for more details.

Working out of The Great Room is sure to help with talent acquisition and retention too. Along with comfortable, design-centric workrooms and chic central meeting spaces, the luxuriously appointed offices in The Great Room all deliver community benefits – from the hospitality mindset of staff to the thoughtful food and beverage touches.

There’s the Monday Breakfast Club, with power grub like scrambled eggs, bagels, local delights and gourmet coffee. On Mondays, there’s the Turndown Cart, serving hot chocolate and cookies to perk staff up at the end of the day. And then there are monthly (virtual) networking nights, engaging team-building and learning sessions, such as Great Thirstdays and the Spend the Night with… series (a fireside chat with influencers and changemakers).

Teng also points out that even legal staff need an inspiring space to work in—something that The Great Room perfectly caters to. “Quite contrary to popular belief, lawyering is creative work. Just as inspiration is a necessity for art, legal professionals also need to find a way to enter and achieve a state of flow in our work.

“It’s not just about the hours of hard work we put in every day. The productivity gains from being in a state of flow are what’s necessary for us to do great work.”

With panoramic city views, landmark buildings and perfect sunset moments, That.Legal’s new home at The Great Room “helps to inspire creative legal solutions for our clients,” says Teng. “We’re happy coming to work.”

Long-term Greed and Why it Matters

April 1, 2024February 25, 2021 by wanqian

Jaelle Ang
CEO and Co-founder of The Great Room

At The Great Room, my biggest challenge and my greatest satisfaction come from our commitment to being ‘long-term greedy.’

Gus Levy of Goldman Sachs coined the term, which is about playing the long game rather than looking for a quick buck – forging long-term relationships with clients because, ultimately, that’s going to lead to greater success. It’s an approach I come back to again and again as a chief executive, a member of the community and a human being.

Over the course of the past four years, The Great Room has opened and continues to operate six locations in three cities.

Our business is very much in the public eye; it’s highly scrutinised, inviting passionate opinions from experts in design, private equity, sustainability and amateurs alike. And, if we want to persist and thrive, we know there’s no time to rest on our laurels.

My work is carved out. In a right-now world, where companies in the flexible workspace sector can grow (and lose) 10 times their market capitalisation in a mere few financial quarters, why would anyone want to support our long-term greed?

I know of no leadership that’s capable of driving solo, or at top speed through every straight shot or hairpin turn. There is, on the other hand, a certain momentum towards success when each player in the team plays their part with finesse. Then the whole endeavour becomes a flywheel.

Jim Collins was the first to refer to the flywheel effect, in his book From Good to Great. A flywheel is a wheel that’s so heavy it takes great effort to push. Keep pushing, however, and the flywheel starts to move, eventually gaining enough momentum to turn by itself.

The Great Room’s flywheel consists of Team TGR, our landlords, our partners, our members and our investors. We’re passionate about growing each spoke of the wheel, and intentional about the order and importance in which we grow each spoke in order to optimise the flywheel.

Landlords and tenants often view themselves in a zero sum game: the more rent I get, the less profit you retain. Yet, when like-minded landlord and tenants come together, their partnership can create a flywheel effect, achieving higher order ambitions for the community.

Tune in as one of our landlords, Swire Properties, shares their experience and insights on #SustainableDevelopment through a film series, Building A Better Future by BBC StoryWorks.

In Hong Kong, which is globally notorious for its uncompromising landlords, we found a partner in our landlord: Swire Properties. With them, we built The Great Room in the global business district that is Taikoo Place. In the words of Guy Bradley, Chief Executive of Swire Properties, “The biggest thing that gives me satisfaction, and probably closest to my heart, is the ability to change places, to make a difference to communities.”

When you’re determined to create a space that people love to be in – when you’re not simply building an efficient workspace in order to put bums on seats – the rigour of choosing a partner to do this with becomes paramount.

Smart developers put human comfort at the centre of their work. Smart developers are bringing tactility to the workspace sphere – a distinct move away from omnipresent granite, bright florescent strips and lobbies with waterfalls. They’re considering the acoustic and aesthetic impact of each material; the amenities and activations partners, as well as the sustainability impact of the building.

After years of stripping back floorboards and ceilings boards only to uncover the decisions and values of developers, I’m heartened to see a shift is underway. So many developers truly appreciate the impact every facet of a building’s design can have on transforming the daily life of every single person within its walls – not only now, but for generations to come.

Pursuing sustainability, indeed the ambition to be a global leader in sustainability, is an example of the long-term greed mindset in action.

*The Great Room Centennial Tower, Singapore*

Yesterday, today and tomorrow, we at The Great Room intend to make decisions that will sit right with the communities of today, and of the future.

I’ve always believed that the deals a company doesn’t make tell you as much about that company as the deals it does. Much of the positive trajectory we have attained is the result of saying, “No, thank you” to opportunities that, while initially compelling, wouldn’t have been wise to pursue.

In a typical year, my senior team and I make as many as 25 exploratory forays into potential new ventures that we often don’t undertake in the end. Each step is a process of learning about the specifics of a deal. More than this, though, it’s an opportunity to explore a human connection.

In the process of exploring a new location, we make repeated visits to the prospective sites (with and without our hosts, alone and together). We meet with the landlords, developers and proactive partners (in their offices, as well as at our locations).

Visiting a company’s offices or projects gives us a much deeper sense of how people conduct their own business in their own environment. It gives us the flavour of the community surrounding the potential site (thinking ahead to what role we might one day play there). It helps us assess our prospects and capacity for fielding a winning staff.

Do our potential partners have great taste in art? Do they care if they do? Are their sustainability initiatives run by the most curious person, or the one who has been sidelined by the organisation?

In the real estate ecosystem, we’re often told it’s all about ‘location, location, location.’ You may think, as I once did, that I’m primarily in the business of finding the right location and building a beautiful workspace.

Actually, though, location and design are secondary to something that matters even more: landlord and partnership. The landlord that takes the same long-term greed mindset we do is the context that provides a strong indication of what we can expect to find in the building, and of our business relationship to come. Our landlord’s capabilities, interests and values enhance the location and quality of the building.

It’s never about the real estate alone. Getting the relationships right is what sets the flywheel in motion, ultimately creating deeply positive, meaningful and sustainable human experiences in the places we change. It’s that simple, and it’s that hard.

Why Work-From-Anywhere Is The New Work-From-Home

October 5, 2021January 21, 2021 by Grace

Move over WFH: it’s all about WFA now. WFA, if you’re not familiar with this increasingly pervasive acronym, stands for work from anywhere.

As KPMG points out in embedding new ways of working, the pandemic has demonstrated on a global level that many jobs can be done from anywhere. With technology as an enabler, remote work – which was on the rise anyway – suddenly became the status quo. As many as 25 to 30% of the world’s workforce will be working remotely by the end of 2021, says Global Workplace Analytics.

REMOTE WORK 2.0

Remote work used to mean working from home, or potentially your hotel room if you were travelling, but it’s evolved beyond that to working from anywhere. The reason being that WFH is limiting. The new reality of work in 2021 is not binary: it’s not office or home. That ‘anywhere’ could be your own home if that’s where you want to work, but it could also be a cafe. It could be a co-working space, your friend’s house, a park, the waiting room at the dentist… anywhere really.

Studio at The Great Room, One Taikoo Place

But when it comes to home, there are distractions – social media being one of the biggest – along with the potential for drops in productivity and motivation.

As for cafes, they may offer more space, an attractive setting and a chance to interact with other people, not to mention ready access to food and tea and coffee. There are drawbacks, however. Unstable wi-fi, the potential for noise that interferes with your ability to focus; whether that’s from overall chatter and cooking noises, or the loud conversation the people at the table next to you are having.

WORK FROM ANYWHERE, ELEVATED

Enter the co-working space. With dedicated desks and offices, shared workspaces are an ideal bridge between the traditional corporate office and working from home. There’s also the opportunity to interact with like-minded individuals and businesses in an environment where everyone else is doing the same thing: working… and not looking at social media.

Workhall at The Great Room, Centennial Tower

ACTIVITY-BASED WFA

At The Great Room, which has inspiring shared workspaces in Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong, that ability to work uninterrupted is amplified by the fact that there are different spaces for different work needs. Head to the Workhall at your venue of choice, where there are desks aplenty when you need to get into the zone and do deep work. Or book a private office if you need privacy by purchasing ; just buy a Day Pass or monthly Hot Desk packages via The Great Room’s online stores in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok.

Need to have a casual chat with someone in your industry? Sit on the sofas and enjoy artisanal coffee in the expansive Drawing Room, the luxuriously appointed space that is the heart of every great room. Have to meet a client? Book one of the leather, wood and marble-clad meeting rooms. If you’re visiting a client at their offices, head to your nearest The Great Room location afterwards. This is activity-based work-from-anywhere at its finest – a far cry from the sofa, the bed or the dining table… and the kids.

The activity-based work model is driven by the idea that people will be more productive if they can move between various settings that cater to the nature of the work they’re doing at that particular moment in time. Giving workers the power to choose where, how and when they work is also hugely empowering.

THE POWER OF CHOICE

In Singapore, The Great Room takes activity-based working goes a step further. Here, you have four locations to choose from, and a fifth on the way. There’s prestigious One George Street, in the heart of the CBD, right near Raffles Place, Clarke Quay and Chinatown MRT. Then there’s Ngee Ann City on Orchard Road, which has a cool bar and a fun, dynamic vibe. Centennial Tower, on the Marina Centre-side of the CBD, is our tech hub; whilst Raffles Arcade, right next to historic hotel Raffles Singapore, is the co-working space of choice for creatives.

Each Singapor e co-working location has been designed individually; each has a different style and a different vibe. Move between them depending on your mood, or your working needs.

Drawing Room at The Great Room, Gaysorn Tower

In other parts of Asia, you will find a two-floor, light-filled The Great Room in Bangkok’s Gaysorn Tower, right next to Chidlom BTS; and another in Hong Kong’s One Taikoo Place, a state-of-the-art sustainably minded and Grade-A office tower in entertainment and work precinct Quarry Bay.

With such chic and forward-thinking destinations to choose from, why limit yourself to working from home when you can work anywhere? Start your WFA journey with a Day Pass for any of The Great Room’s shared workspaces in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok via The Great Room’s online stores.

Homegrown and Growing

April 1, 2024August 14, 2020 by wanqian

From fashion to finance, some of your most familiar regional brands are rooted in Singapore

They took root on the Little Red Dot; and with ambition as their seeds, they are sprouting in cities around the region. As Singapore celebrated their 55^th birthday this month, we honour some of the regional names that have their roots in the Lion City.

GoBear

It started with a simple idea: to create a solution that makes choosing insurance and financial products a task that isn’t mired with attempts to comprehend complicated terms and side-stepping potholes masked by jargon. There was clearly a demand for such a platform, since its launch in 2015, GoBear’s free search service has transformed the experience of picking a financial product for more than 55 million users across the region – and the numbers are still growing. First launched in Singapore and Thailand, it now has presence in seven markets, including Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong SAR.

Within five years, the Singaporean fintech startup has gone from a metasearch engine to Asia’s leading financial services platform. In May this year, it raised US$17m, which will serve to accelerate its transformation into a full-fledged financial services platform with three business verticals; an online financial market, a digital insurance brokerage, and a digital lending platform. It might have been a simple idea that sparked the company’s inception, but GoBear is certainly going big. From their modest beginnings as a local lean team set up, to a grown up start up headquartered in The Great Room, Raffles Arcade, GoBear is here to stay.

Grain

A digital “food experience company” that applies a cloud kitchen model to deliver clean, and cost-efficient dishes. From meals on demand to nutrition plans and catering services, Singapore-based Grain is a much-welcome disruptor in the F&B landscape. Launched in 2014, it raised a US$10m Series B in 2019, which will be pumped into ramping up growth in its home-base, and to build infrastructure to support revenue of US$100m. To realise its growth plans, this local start-up isn’t just limiting itself to the Singaporean market: the Series B funding by Singha Ventures is working with Grain to expand in South-east Asia

Great Thirstday at The Great Room One George Street

Grain’s tasty yet healthy menu items such as a South-African spice rubbed vegan burger, sous vide Hainanese chicken brown rice, and a flame torched Wagyu steak with French mushroom fricassée, sautéed asparagus and roasted potatoe is quite literally the proof in the pudding that this local startup is well on its way to dominating the F&B industry, feeding the nation with delicious food spiked with nutritional ingredients. We at The Great Room value and admire the wholesome deliciousness of Grain’s clean meals, and are proud to be partnering with them to offer our community a taste clean eating.

Love, Bonito

What started as a blogshop by a trio of teenage girlfriends trying to earn some pocket money, Singapore-based Love, Bonito has become a household fashion brand with an international presence and physical shops in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia. A new pop-up shop is also due to be launched in Hong Kong soon, marking the brand’s expansion into the territory.

Flourishing from an amateurish venture with a start-up capital of just SGD$500 to a multi-million dollar business with orders upwards of 5,000 per week, Love, Bonito goes beyond inspiring budding entrepreneurs. The brand has transformed into a positive and powerful social influence platform, with their core team opinion makers at the pulse of thought leadership in positivity and female empowerment. Read nuggets of wisdom from Dione Song, Love, Bonito’s Chief Commercial Officer here on Great Minds Never Think Alike, a compendium by The Great Room on how local thinkfluencers are living their best life in work and in play.

The Great Room

Driven by the mindset that work is more than just a place to get a job done, The Great Room unveiled its first venue – a 15,000 sq ft coworking space at One George Street in Singapore in 2016. A coworking space like none other; plush as a five-star hotel lobby, yet designed for peak productivity. Transforming the way people approached coming into work. By the time the One George Street venue expanded in 2017, the 10,000 sq ft extension was full even before the space was launched.

Since then, The Great Room has brought their unique style of hospitality-led premium coworking spaces beyond Singapore to Bangkok and Hong Kong. Growth isn’t just a business advancement plan, its also an expansion of The Great Room community – one that works and grows together, transcending geographical boundaries. Just as it takes people to make a house a home, it takes members to build The Great Room into the vibrant, cosmopolitan family of colleagues it is today.

Working together, staying together

April 1, 2024July 24, 2020 by wanqian

How coworking can complement your company’s talent-growth strategies

The COVID-19 pandemic is unchartered waters for the global economy. It’s a period that calls for all hands on deck—a crucial time for businesses to focus on its people. Of all the fires to be putting out during this critical era, staff attrition shouldn’t be one of them.

Staff retention efforts go beyond engaging your team with stimulating work and enabling career progression plans that allow employees to grow with the company. It’s the soft touches that are just as critical in boosting morale, promoting a sense of well-being, and ultimately, encouraging your superstar workers to thrive during volatile times.

Community War Chest

Hiring right is the first step to any organisation’s talent strategy, but also the most difficult to achieve. Some might say it takes various serendipitous opportunities to recruit the best talent, but there are things you can do to push the needle in the right direction. Putting yourself in the right place, with the like-minded people who can strengthen your work tribe is certainly one way.

One of our members interviewed several candidates to fill a top associate position, but in vain. He then connected with a team member at a recruitment company within The Great Room community. The recruiters presented him with just one candidate, resulting in the perfect person for the job. Each of The Great Room’s coworking space is a natural ecosystem that attracts a diverse, yet like-minded pool of professionals across different industries. It is a community to grow roots and thrive in.

Toughing it, Not Roughing it

It might seem like a natural move to cut expenditures during trying times, but there are ways to do so without negatively impacting staff morale. Moving out from the Central Business District (CBD) to an industrial area in the suburbs might look like substantial savings on paper, however, the disruption it would bring to your team’s daily routine alone could become a push factor; a brain drain that might cost the company even more than it saves.

Transitioning from a leased unit to a coworking venue in a Grade A office with floor to ceiling windows boasting 360 city views, wide or column-free layouts located in a prime CBD spot would make staff feel differently about coming to work. Luxuriously furnished and designed to maximise productivity, our premium coworking destinations in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok might be your best HR ally. It’s a space that your team will be proud to work in, and one that delivers an impeccable first impression for those all-important meetings, be it with a client or new talent you’ve got your antenna out for.

Monday Breakfast Club in The Great Room One Taikoo Place, Hong Kong

It’s All in the Detail

If a full HR team with the bandwidth to take care of staff welfare sounds like a luxury to you, it’s on the house at The Great Room. Grounded on the ethos of #itsallworkitsallplay, and with the driving force of hospitality fueling service excellence, every touchpoint is humancentric. Mondays start right with complimentary Monday Breakfast Club; a spread of power grub like scrambled eggs, everything bagels and local delights.

But more than that, it sets the stage for connections to be made and conversations to flow. The week closes on an effervescent note, with a Turndown Cart of refreshing nightcaps to ease everyone into the week. From convivial monthly networking nights, engaging team bonding activities to illuminating business learning sessions, The Great Room’s team has it all planned out to reward staff, help recharge, and inspire reimagination of greater things. Not merely a space to get work done, coworking offers employees a community, flexible work options and be at the core of activity and innovation; a purposeful space and mindset for peak levels of productivity.