Does the Workplace Influence Your Employees’ Professional Identities?

by Mallory Budy | July 15th, 2019

Coworking spaces were originally created to offer individuals and young companies a space outside of the home to work. At its most basic level, they offer a physical space – like any other office. But, we know traditional offices offer their tenants much more than just desks and meeting spaces; if designed and used well, they can offer employers and employees a sense of culture, community, and professional identity. Can coworking spaces do the same? To uncover the shifting landscape of coworking spaces, design firm HLWand iconic coworking OG WeWork, with the help of collaborators at the University of Michigan, set about answering the question, “How do highly curated coworking cultures and traditional offices impact the professional identity of members, employees andtheir organizations?” Between 2017 and 2018, Pete Bacevice, Director of Research at HLW, and his team collaborated with WeWork to survey“over 1,000 of their new individual members in the …