How ‘Traveling Offices’ Could Help Reignite Corporate Travel

Traveling offices, or micro offices, could be the panacea for companies that face remote work challenges, but few corporate travel agencies seem to have caught up so far.

The premise is simple. A company shifts the location of its headquarters to a new destination on a regular basis — blending the power of face-to-face interaction with tourism and the excitement of discovering new places to revitalize the workforce.

“It’s challenging to keep team members excited, engaged and passionate about a company’s mission,” said Martin Studencan, CEO of booking platform NextRetreat. “Gym memberships, office dogs, free beer and other perks can make a small difference, but there is a unique energy and motivation that develops when teams travel and work together in an inspiring environment.”

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Rules need to be in place though, as software engineering firm Lazer Technologies is discovering. The Toronto-based company, which acts as a kind of SWAT team to help companies rapidly scale, has been pioneering the concept, with two countries under its belt already.

How Did It Get Here?

Like many companies, Lazer used to offer a week-long retreat each year before coronavirus struck, opting for large Airbnbs in different destinations. There was a strong office culture too, and it wanted to recreate that in the post-pandemic world.

As a result, Lazer now spends one month every quarter in a new location, hiring office space and accommodation, including one week dedicated to vacation time. It’s already been to Costa Rica and Uruguay. The traveling office isn’t compulsory, but is designed to unite employees in certain hemispheres, for example.

The shortlist of countries must have tax treaties with Canada, and digital nomads visas for any contractors working with the company. All employees can vote.

And similar to travel becoming the new rent for digital nomads, the disappearance of office leases is set to fund this new phenomenon.

“We were paying about $8,000 to $12,000 a month in rent,” said Arif Bhanji, co-founder of Lazer Technologies. “Now we’re using that budget towards the traveling office, which in my opinion is just a more fun way to enjoy that budget.”

There are other strategies in play. Lazer wants to recruit the best software engineers — it claims the top one percent globally — so travel is a valuable perk to offer. “To keep the best engineers, we have to be unique. We have to build such a strong culture that people don’t feel they have to take the next crazy offer from a Facebook, or a Shopify or a Google,” Bhanji said.

In fact the idea was sparked by four of Lazer’s own engineers, who moved to Costa Rica together. All that remained was for Lazer to add some structure.

But the structure needs to flex, to avoid discrimination. Employees can opt out, or drop in for just a few days if they want. If staff want to bring their families they get put up in an all-inclusive result.

Bhanji said Lazer also pays for onsite teaching for children, and even subsidizes dog sitting costs. “Any length we can go to accommodate more families, we would. We have a lot of budget to work with from not having to rent out an office,” he said.

Follow the Sun

The concept has been coined as the “micro office” by another company.

“We get together for a week every couple of months,” said Wojtek Czekalski co-founder at customer service company Dialo. “When we expand it’s likely that we’ll create micro offices. There are two goals: developing camaraderie and creative work. It’s nearly impossible to conduct long and productive creative meetings between more than two people on Zoom.”

He believes that for European companies in particular, a natural step would be to set up an office in a place like the Canaries for the winter, which is where his team is going in December.

NextRetreat’s Studencan expects more companies to “follow the sun”, with Lisbon, which is becoming “Berlin of the South,” also set to soar in popularity.

“It’s a brilliant idea to create a more global mindset,” said Will Tate, partner at GoldSpring Consulting. “Interacting with different cultures, country and business climates creates a deeper understanding for all parties, which is exactly what our global business travel community always needs more of.”

Tate said corporate travel agencies are excellent partners in moving employees, securing longer-term accommodation, and facilitating ground transportation options. “Many agencies even offer complimentary technologies to help with the fun stuff: scheduling tours, exercise choices, dining options, and other cultural experiences that enrich these types of travel.”

However, the corporate travel agencies that Skift spoke to mostly said that while they were aware of the concept, to date they had not seen any real demand from their clients. But they’re watching the space carefully.

Destination marketing organizations may also want to keep an eye on this trend. They used to compete for conferences and exhibitions before the pandemic, but promoting locations as ideal traveling offices could equally bring the revenue.

As for Lazer’s next traveling office location, the team will be heading to Cartagena, Colombia, after Barbados and Miami narrowly missed out.

Sidenotes

It’s surprising Facebook took so long to launch Horizon Workrooms, a virtual reality platform designed to reinvent the office.

Facebook Horizon Workrooms. Picture: Facebook

In a rare video interview, Mark Zuckerberg runs through the platform, and notes how remote working today mostly involves staring at a grid of faces. But with virtual reality headsets, there’s that sense of space thanks to “spatial audio,” with people talking on your left or right. There’s also the memory of where that interaction is taking place.

But do people want to return to offices, virtual or otherwise? From a sociological perspective, people were largely “tethered” to offices for several decades due to infrastructure. “Offices were designed around IT networks rather than people networks,” said Ryan Anderson, vice president of global research and insights at Herman Miller, speaking at an online event.

The extra levels of freedom that Horizon Workrooms offers are welcome. Is this a blow for for the wider corporate travel industry? Probably not.

10-Second Corporate Travel Catch-Up

Who and what Skift has covered over the past week: AirAsia, Airbnb, American Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, IHG, Oyo, Play, Qantas, Ramp, Virgin Atlantic.

In Brief

WeWork Wins Federal Contract and Expands Pay-As-You-Go Pricing

WeWork has launched its pay-as-you-go scheme internationally, following healthy take-up in the U.S. and Canada. WeWork On Demand is now available at 40 buildings across the UK, Ireland, Singapore and Australia. The company claimed monthly bookings for a workspace have quadrupled, and room bookings more than doubled, since March, with a total of nearly 70,000 bookings to date. WeWork said the platform is used by people to quickly arrange in-person meetings, find a dedicated workspace while traveling in another city, or secure rooms to collaborate with their teams. Meanwhile, it has been selected as one of five co-work companies by the U.S. General Service Administration to provide offices for government employees, alongside Expansive, Deskpass, The Yard and LiquidSpace.

Delta Variant Dampens Business Travel’s Return

Philadelphia is just one example of how the delayed reopening of offices, due to the Delta variant, is going to prolong a business travel recovery in the U.S. There are 100,000 missing workers in Center City, according to local media. The city has suffered 40 percent of the region’s Covid-19 job losses, and just a third of city employees have returned to their offices. “It’s a rolling uncertainty at this point,” said Paul Levy, president and CEO of the Center City District.

The missing 100,000 people are still working remotely, based on cellphone usage, pedestrian-watching cameras, federal jobs data and building owner surveys, the report added. According to a recent Global Business Travel Association poll, 85 percent of its stakeholders are “concerned” or “very concerned” about the revenue impact the Delta variant poses to companies when it comes to revenue in the business travel sector. This compares to 79 percent on employment and rehiring, and 78 percent on the safety of business travel.

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