San Francisco's Downtown Dilemma
Plus: Small tech's embrace of flexibility and the work leadership problem
👋 Happy Tuesday! Welcome to your freshly revamped Flex Index newsletter. We've enhanced our content to bring you more trending stories on the future of work and valuable insights from top Flexperts while still delivering the Flex Index data you rely on. To ensure we're meeting your needs, we've also added a poll for you to weigh in on the type of content you’d like to see more of in the future.
In this week’s edition:
🏢 Reimagining Downtown San Francisco
💻 Small Tech Firms Embrace Flexibility
💡The Work Leadership Problem
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FLEX EVENTS 📅
Invite: Join Us for the Epoch Employee Experience Series!
Reserve your spot on August 22nd for an insightful conversation on how to shape workplaces that boost employee engagement and ROI featuring:
Jade Choy, Co-Founder and CEO at Epoch
Jackie Tsai, Senior Manager, Workplace Experience at Chime
Rob Sadow, CEO & Co-Founder at Flex Index
In this discussion, you’ll learn:
🏢How smart workplace design boosts engagement and productivity
🧠Strategies to measure ROI on workplace experience initiatives
📈Emerging trends in workplace design that help attract and retain top talent
PS Can't attend live? No problem – register to receive the on-demand recording of the event.
THIS WEEK’S FLEX FOCUS 🔍
San Francisco’s Downtown Dilemma
Mayoral Candidate Mark Farrell’s plan to revive San Francisco’s downtown district hinges on bringing workers back to the office.
With a nearly 35% office vacancy rate, his proposal offers tax incentives to companies that have employees in-office four days a week with a goal of halving empty office space by his first term’s end. As San Francisco stands at a crossroads, the challenge lies in balancing economic recovery with evolving workplace norms.
Farrell’s initiative sparks a crucial debate: How can San Francisco (and other cities facing the same dilemma) reimagine its downtown for a changing world?
FLEX WORK QUICK HITS 💥
Stay ahead of the curve with our curated roundup of the trending flexible work stories making waves right now. Here's what you need to know 👇
Fortune: 63% of C-suite leaders whose companies have mandated an office return say the policy has led a disproportionate number of women to quit.
Inc: Hybrid work dominates Fortune 100, with 81% of employees splitting time between the office (3.11 days/week) and remote as 2024 sees fewer return mandates.
WSJ: MillerKnoll sees first organic order growth in two years, signaling a potential recovery in the office and home furnishing markets amid evolving work trends.
STAT OF THE WEEK 📈
Flex Work Divide: Small vs Mid-Size Tech Firms
Workplace flexibility policies reveal a stark divide between small and mid-size Tech firms, according to a FlexGPT analysis from Jeanne C Meister, Founder of Future Workplace and Workplace Strategist.
Her FlexGPT query shows:
Small Tech firms (<1,000 employees) strongly favor flexibility: 58% offer Employee’s Choice, while 28.6% are Fully Remote
Mid-sized firms (>1,000 employees) lean towards structure: only 2.7% are Fully Remote, with 39.2% requiring a Minimum Days / Week
As Meister notes, while policies provide a framework, team leader expectations often shape the day-to-day reality of flexible work.
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FLEXPERT INSIGHTS 🧠
WhatWorks: The Work Leadership Problem
In his latest WhatWorks newsletter, Omar Ramirez challenges leaders to rethink work design in the post-pandemic era. He argues that simply adopting hybrid work isn’t enough—companies need to redesign how work happens fundamentally.
Dive into the article to learn:
Why location strategies should be based on work done, not vice versa
How to move beyond mandates and truly lead in redesigning work
Why this is a 20-year effort to reshape the intersection of work, life, and place
Practical steps to start the difficult but necessary work of redesigning team operations.
FLEX PERSPECTIVES 🎙️
Beyond Square Footage: Rethinking Commercial Real Estate in the Hybrid Era | Dave Cairns
In this episode of Flex Perspectives, Rob Sadow is joined by Dave Cairns, a Future of Work strategist at Kadence and former SVP at CBRE Canada.
Join us as we discuss:
How Dave's experience as a professional poker player shaped his perspective on the future of work
The changing dynamics of real estate brokerage and office space productivity evaluation
Where we're headed with work location flexibility
Also available on Apple Podcasts.
COMPANY SPOTLIGHT ⭐️
Intuit is a leading financial software company founded in 1983, famous for products like TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Mint. With a mission to power prosperity around the world, Intuit offers innovative financial management solutions for small businesses, consumers, and accounting professionals.
ONE MORE THING 1️⃣
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