Reducing Complexity And Increasing Simplicity: Why WeWork Enterprise Office Space Is Taking Off Worldwide

Traditional office spaces continue to struggle with muted demand and high vacancy rates unless they are one of the few Class-A office buildings meeting the long list of requirements of today's modern office occupier. The flexible workspace industry, on the other hand, faces a very different reality.

In a 2024 survey, WeWork found that nearly 60% of companies looking to expand over the next several years are choosing to do so with flexible workspace as opposed to traditional offices. At the same time, almost 90% of companies say offices will play a big role in increasing their profitability and enhancing a positive work culture.

But what’s driving more companies to embrace flexible office solutions, and what can these spaces offer that a traditional office can’t? 

According to Luke Robinson, WeWork’s regional president for North America, companies are searching for spaces that offer flexible and cost-effective real estate solutions, are highly amenitized and can be scaled as needed — something the traditional office sector has struggled to deliver. 

“There's a lot of unpredictability in today’s workplace, which increases the need for flexibility,” Robinson said. “As a result of that demand, flexible workspaces are becoming a more established part of a businesses' portfolio — including enterprise companies. Before, many of the largest companies in the world may not have considered it.”

Luke Armstrong, WeWork’s regional president, United Kingdom and Ireland, EMEA and Asia-Pacific, added that in this hybrid world, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to forecast how many people will be in the office on any given week, let alone in a year.

“Today, we’re seeing a real shift as more companies accept that predicting fluctuating headcount is almost impossible,” Armstrong said. “Committing entirely to a traditional lease portfolio no longer makes business sense.”

Due to this growing need for flexible space, whether its growth or contraction, WeWork has seen heightened interest from enterprise companies for its flexible product suite, which enables large businesses to solve their real estate needs with move-in ready office space either within WeWork’s portfolio or anywhere around the world, he added.

“We've been offering this service for the better part of the last six or seven years, but with increased momentum around [return-to-office] mandates and the formalization of hybrid working that favors in-office time, we’re experiencing heightened demand as companies’ real estate needs evolve,” Robinson said.

Armstrong and Robinson said that enterprise companies turn to WeWork for two main reasons: to access flexible space within WeWork's market-leading portfolio, or to have WeWork find, build and operate a new office anywhere in the world.

The latter provides a one-stop solution to outsource a client's real estate strategy — from sourcing the space to handling legal contracts and day-to-day operations. WeWork can easily replicate this process quickly and at scale for clients however and wherever they want to work, Robinson added.

“We aim to deliver simplicity out of complexity,” Armstrong said.

When an enterprise client signs a lease with WeWork, it can select either large office spaces or take entire floors depending on the company’s needs. Armstrong said that the firm can then source, sign, deliver and manage space with its in-house experts to the clients specifications, allowing them to focus on running their business.

“If people are going to use office space, there needs to be a pretty good reason to do so,” Armstrong said. “We intentionally design our spaces to encourage people to interact, collaborate and do their best work.”

One added perk that makes WeWork’s experience seamless and unique is its dedicated enterprise account management team, Robinson said. This team provides a single point of contact for a member, who understands a client’s processes, how they transact and what space requirements they have. This person then manages the member's WeWork portfolio, whether that’s space in one market or in multiple cities across the globe.

If a client wants to talk about space in New York and then space in London or Seoul, they can work through the same individual, which is something unique in this business, Armstrong added.

“We recognize that within large organizations, some of them have centralized real estate teams who manage everything, but, at the same time, many don't,” Robinson said. “We’ve created the foundations for making real estate transacting easy with us.”

It takes the pain out of procuring real estate — a process that can often be time and capital intensive, Armstrong said.

Having premium, flexible workspaces that are ideally located in cities around the globe is essential to today’s office environment, Robinson said. That’s why WeWork, beyond its 600 locations, launched its partnership with Vast Coworking Group last October. WeWork users now have the opportunity to work from more than 75 new locations in more suburban markets across the U.S. and Canada to suit their needs. 

“You need great space, and it needs to be well-located,” Robinson said. “That’s real estate 101. We're continuing to expand our portfolio through our Coworking Partner Network, which has enabled us to scale in a slightly different way to better meet the needs of distributed and hybrid companies. We're also still going to be looking at signing leases, management agreements and revenue share-type of deals.”

WeWork partners with more than 4,000 large enterprise customers, Robinson said, including over 40 Fortune 100 companies. 

Most recently, the flexible workspace provider signed two leases with Amazon in which the ecommerce giant will expand its presence in Manhattan by more than 400K SF. This is part of WeWork's managed enterprise solutions, where the firm sources, activates and manages third party space beyond their portfolio to meet a company’s specific needs.

“We’re developing and doubling down on what we call our ‘managed enterprise solutions,’ essentially activating and operating third-party space beyond our portfolio for a specific company,” Armstrong said. “This is exactly what we’ve done with Amazon. We are supporting the company’s real estate strategy by activating and managing workspace in locations including Manhattan, Dallas and Silicon Valley.” 

As more and more companies return to the office in a hybrid or full-time capacity, one thing remains unequivocally true around the globe: When workers return to the office, they’re demanding world-class space, Armstrong said. 

“Everybody is looking for high quality, well-located space, and this exists more prominently than it ever has before,” Armstrong said. “The buildings need to deliver an exceptional experience, and I think we do that phenomenally well.”

The numbers speak for themselves. WeWork had more than 15 million visitors at its locations last year, a 12% increase from the year prior. Robinson and Armstrong said this is an impressive feat — one that the firm aims to beat moving forward as both predict that flexible workspaces will continue to be the fastest-growing segment of the office sector globally.

This article was produced in collaboration between Studio B and WeWork. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.