Companies Ramp Up Coworking Expansions, A Rare Office Market Bright Spot / The future of the home office is multifunctional, mobile and modular / Office Design Strategies for A Positive Workplace Culture / What Does Meta's Recent Office Downsizing Say About the Market? / Hybrid isn't working for many people because nobody can agree what it is / Rieke Interiors rebrands / Creating a Hybrid Work Friendly Conference Room.

THE WORKING SPACE
October 31, 2022

Industry News

Inscape announces all cash offer of $0.007 per share

Inscape Corporation Saturday announced that it has entered into a Support Agreement with HUK 121 Limited, a subsidiary of Hilco Capital Limited UK, under which the Offeror has agreed to initiate a take-over bid to acquire all of the Inscape’s outstanding subordinated voting shares for $0.007 in cash per Share by way of a friendly take-over bid.

In connection with the Offer, certain shareholders of Inscape who collectively represent over 80% of the shares, have entered into “hard” Lock-Up Agreements with the Offeror under which such shareholders have agreed to support the Offer and to deposit their shares under the Offer.

The Company also announces that it has entered into a loan agreement with HUK 116 Limited, another subsidiary of Hilco, for the establishment of a new $5 million demand secured credit facility. The new credit facility will be used by the company to finance working capital and for other corporate purposes.

Workplace Furnishings net sales decreased 4.6 percent from the prior-year quarter to $375.2 million. On an organic basis sales were flat year-over-year. The impact of the sale of the Lamex business during the quarter decreased sales $17.9 million compared to the prior-year quarter.
 
Normalized orders in the Workplace Furnishings segment decreased 15 percent versus the same period a year ago. The quarter was up against a strong year-ago comparable; third quarter 2021 normalized orders increased 40 percent on a year-over-year basis. During the third quarter of 2022, orders from small-to-medium sized customers were stronger than those from larger contract customers. Transactional activity through national supplies dealers and wholesale partners was weak throughout the quarter.
Office usage has remained depressed in San Francisco for so long that city officials are trying to get a grasp on the severity of the problem and formulate a plan for how to manage the shifting landscape of the city's commercial activity going forward.

2022-Q3 Solomon Coyle Market Outlook Report Shows Market Still Growing

The Solomon Coyle 2022-Q3 Market Outlook Report is now available. Key findings this quarter cite the following:

• The current survey has captured a 4.4% increase in Q3'22 bookings over Q2'22, better than the expected 3.2% increase previously forecasted. This suggests some pent-up demand is still positively impacting dealers in bookings.

• Dealers see bookings growth increasing 2.5% in Q4’22 over Q3’22 and forecast an increase of 0.4% in Q1 of 2023 over forecasted Q4’22 levels.

• Billings grew significantly, with the index increasing from 60.2 to 65.6. This would indicate that dealers are employing best practices in progress payments, deposits, and effective terms and conditions, thus countering supply chain and construction delay realities.

• The backlog index is at 99.7 as compared to 93.2 in the Q2’22 results, which is the highest point in the last three years, pre- and post-pandemic. This impacts storage availability, job completion, invoicing, and cash flow.

• There is a slight slowdown in pipeline activity in most regions, sectors, and product categories, likely due to economic uncertainty, delayed decisions, and diminishing pent-up demand. With the notable exceptions of the furniture product category and the government, hospitality, and tech sectors, pipeline growth is slowing.

Head of Business Analytics for Solomon Coyle, John Joseph, shares, “The sector pipeline breakdown is flashing a concerning signal this quarter. The strongest pipelines are in government, education, and healthcare, which historically respond slowest to market downturns. We will be keeping a very close eye on this in the coming months.”

Distributors that complete the quarterly survey receive a full report containing regional and subregional information, where available.

Office owners nationally are still struggling with high vacancy rates and uncertainty around future tenant demand, but one growing segment has begun to emerge this year.

Coworking operators are seeing big companies expand their investments into flexible workspaces and bring employees back at higher rates than traditional offices, and some are growing their own footprints to meet the rising demand. Market experts said this could help fill some of the millions of square feet of office space that sit vacant.

The office space sector will most likely see a strong fourth quarter in 2022 - but the rise in interest rates might put a roadblock in the market's momentum.

Commercial real estate analysts at MyEListing.com recently conducted a report forecasting the future of the CRE market. Their projections found that the CRE market will still be successful as it has been throughout the year so far, but will start to cool off as inflation persists and interest rates steadily rise.

Commercial real estate players are predicting a recession to hit the U.S. economy in the coming months - but they think it will be "short and shallow," according to the Urban Land Institute and PwC's 2023 Emerging Trends in Real Estate report, released Thursday.
Firings and layoffs began almost immediately after Elon Musk finalized a deal to purchase Twitter for $44B late Thursday.

Top Twitter leadership, including CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and policy executive Vijaya Gadde, was the first to go, according to Reuters.

Is the desire for fully remote roles dwindling? Yes, dramatically, according to Flexa Careers' most recent installment of the Flexible Working Index, which tracks where, when, and how people prefer to work and what companies offer. 
 
In August, 60% of job searches on Flexa’s global directory for flexible jobs were for fully remote roles. Yet it plummeted to 44% in September — a drop of 26 percentage points and, in pleasing symmetry, 26.4% — using a sample size of 43,569 searches by those hunting work (83% in the U.K. and 3% in the U.S.) and over 1,290 job adverts.
Trade-fair environments are often all-consuming, and it can be a challenge give a careful eye to each and every stand during the busy events. Luckily, FRAME magazine had a few pairs to spare for Orgatec, the work-furniture design fair in Cologne.
As more companies solidify their hybrid work schedules, it is becoming clear that multiple days per week, their offices are going unused — which opens up possibilities.

San Francisco-based startup Codi is among the first to try to capitalize on the gaps opened up by hybrid work by allowing multiple companies to occupy the same furnished offices it manages on alternating days, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Rents at LEED-certified U.S. office buildings have been about 4% higher than noncertified buildings in recent years, according to a new report by CBRE. The effect on rents is higher for suburban properties than downtown ones, though the impact of LEED certification is felt in both places.
Each of the 6,830 designs in Andreu World’s catalogue are now Cradle to Cradle Certified®, a mark of their safety, responsible make and circularity. The achievement comes after a decade-long commitment to ‘ecodesigning’, a process the team explains is all about durability and ensuring products can have a second life. This is not the company’s first sustainability-related milestone: Andreu World is also a carbon-neutral business, and it was the first to utilize bioplastics in the manufacture of furniture and launch a 100 per cent FSC® wood range.

Features

It's no secret that today's workplaces have changed dramatically from the somber network of sequestered cubicles. If the COVID-19 pandemic proved anything, it's that most of us can work from anywhere, so coming into the office is no longer mandatory for many roles.
Future Forum, a research-based consortium launched by Slack, with founding partners MillerKnoll, Boston Consulting Group, and MLT to help companies better support the future of work, released key findings from its latest global Pulse study. The most important: Burnout rose to 40% this quarter globally—an 8% rise from May—with the most significant increase in the U.S., where 43% of “desk workers” reported feeling burned out.

Workspace News

An academic study on the effects of hybrid work has found that staff who work from home two days a week are significantly happier than they were working in an office full time. They're quite a bit more productive, too.
A new poll published by Landsec claims there is a distinct lack of clarity around what hybrid working means, with less than one in five UK workers agreeing on a definition. The report suggests that this hybrid ‘hotchpotch’ is having a negative impact on bosses’ relationships with their teams.

The research, commissioned in partnership with Censuswide, polled over 800 UK employees across legal, technology, energy and finance firms to understand how employees see the value of the office.

As remote work frees up desks, companies are learning to remake their spaces to emphasize interaction.

Design

There is a general consensus that the way offices are laid out needs to change post-COVID. But what the office should look like is still being determined. Even though there are still plenty of questions around workspace layout and function, one thing that is certain is that conference space will be at the center of it. Work generally got done from home during the pandemic but what was missing was the collaboration that comes from teams spending time together in person.
Amenities only go so far in enticing new employees. Most office environments are built around functional concerns like employee performance, ergonomics, circulation and supporting productivity. In response to an increased awareness of the workplace’s impact on mental and physical health, companies now recognize more than ever that creating a positive work environment can enhance their culture, attract recruits and retain existing employees.

Trends

Our workplaces have changed for good. How is workplace design answering to these immense changes. Sustainability, agility, co-creation, technology, and wellbeing are some of the responses that designers have had to these changes and were explored in-depth during The Next Space: The Empathetic Workplace during Orgatec last week.
Long gone are the days of creating a makeshift workspace out of stacked books and dining room tables. Almost three years into the pandemic era, the demand for home office furniture continues to rise as employees ebb and flow between working from home and traditional offices. By the end of 2022, the U.S. market for home office furniture is expected to reach $14.9 billion, up from $14 billion in 2021.

The Metaverse

Knowing how the meta-office will affect your life is the best way to prepare for the future of work. While the metaverse is currently in the throes of bad press thanks to the laughably bad unveiling of Meta’s digital environment and Zuckerberg’s nightmarish avatar, it’s still poised to become part and parcel of the future of corporate work and gatherings.

Latest Products

Mantra Inspired Furniture introduced the Clayborne Collection. Named after the Mantra Inspired Furniture code's author, solid strength of character embodies this collection of casegoods from its dovetail joint details to its steel leg frame foundation. 
Lighting manufacturer Gantri, who has made the pipeline for independent designers to produce their lighting designs a more tangible reality, just dropped their largest collection of new sustainable lights. The whopping 20 light release includes collections of table, floor and task lamps designed by Kickie Chudikova, Viviana Degrandi, Andrew Ferrier, Chris Granneberg, Filippo Mambretti, Felix Pöttinger, and PROWL Studio.

Other News

Last week, the FIA finally announced penalties for Red Bull Racing after the team overspent Formula 1's cost cap in 2021. It’ll have its wind tunnel and CFD hours reduced, but at the end of the day — but lost in the online discourse is the fact that Aston Martin also had cost cap filing errors, and possibly for the most hilarious reason in the world. It messed up filing expenditures for office furniture. Aston Martin has sustained a $450,000 fine for a “procedural” breach. The FIA noted that Aston’s issues regarded the fact that the team “inaccurately excluded and/or adjusted costs in the calculation of its relevant costs.” As pointed out by the FIA, that included the “cost of desks and chairs,” along with catering services, unrecorded costs and losses regarding sponsor services, signing bonuses, and simulator fees.
More than a century ago, Henry Ford revolutionized the manufacturing industry by rolling out the conveyor belt system that helped produce the famous Model T cars. Today, one industrial designer wants to take conveyor belts out of the factory and put them into your home.
Looking to expand your furniture manufacturing operations into other categories? PetSmart has introduced a swanky new collection designed specifically for fish, reptiles, and small pets—and their adoring humans. The collection includes chic habitats, aquarium ornaments, and specially designed “pet consoles” that look like fancy mahogany cabinets but house terrariums and aquariums. Most of the items in PetSmart’s new collection look like miniature versions of on-trend mantlepiece decor, which isn’t all that surprising, given that Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent (perhaps best known for their home renovation show Nate & Jeremiah by Design) are behind the collection.

Trends in Commercial Projects from Around the Globe

From their humble start in a basement on Manhattan's Lower East Side in 2007, the lighting brand Rich Brilliant Willing (RBW) has undergone a rapid expansion and fixtures like its Dimple sconce, Palindrome chandelier, and Delta pendant have found wide popularity for their pared-back aesthetics.
The global COVID pandemic radically redefined the way we work - and for American software company Zendesk, it meant a drastic rethink of the design for a new 26,000 sq. ft. office in Montreal that was already underway. 

CFN Help Wanted Ads

Find the best Contract Furniture Industry jobs and hire the best talent.
Your LinkedIn headline, the first content that appears under your name, is no place for a slogan written by yourself for yourself. It’s true, it can come across as self-aggrandizement, pretentious, even delusional…
Serve as main contact to all lab reseller partners for training, education, website development, regional sales visits and sales meetings and support of all client project pursuits.
The Sales Account Manager oversees existing and new customer sales activities assigned by the Director of Sales & Marketing. The ideal candidate will possess an enthusiastic and entrepreneurial spirit for selling. Self-starter with the ability to pioneer, cultivate, and grow sales.
The PlanSCAPE® Designer is an accredited expert in school design. This position assists in all project planning. Works in conjunction with the Art Director to develop space planning layouts, render environments, and select color pallets. 
The PlanSCAPE® Specialist is a point contact during the selling and project development process. The PlanSCAPE Specialist will serve as the space plan, design consultant and vendor partner product expert for large scale PlanSCAPE projects.
Barbican Architectural Products enters it’s 35th year of business looking to find the right partners for it’s Architectural Wall Division. Organizations should provide an established network of Architects, Interior Designers, General contractors and end users. Due to the overwhelming response and the utilization of our Architectural Walls, we need solid business partnerships to support the growing demand.
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