There is a war going on right now. It is a no-rules grudge match for the world’s most precious commodity. It isn’t for minerals, land or data. It is a war for talent.
The battleground for the war for talent is increasingly becoming the workspace. Forward thinking tech companies worldwide have shown how innovative and fun workspaces are a cost effective tool for recruiting, motivating and retaining high-level talent. A headquarters can be the physical representation of a corporation’s culture, or at least the one that they are trying to cultivate.
Big players often hire professionals with titles like Head of Corporate Facilities or Chief Workplace Officers and use multi-million dollar budgets to design and build their offices into flashy cathedrals of human capital. Smaller companies that don’t have the resources to hire workplace architects, sign long term leases or do extensive tenant improvements don’t have the same option. They often find themselves in coworking areas that are more suited for unaffiliated freelancers that lack infrastructure for large collaborations and are devoid of any individual brand identity.
This is where companies like Knotel come in. By offering the customization of a in-house designed office combined with the flexibility of a shared office they have made a name for themselves in New York City, one of the hottest office markets in the world.
I recently interviewed Knotel’s CEO and co-founder, Amol Sarva where I got a chance to ask him about what he sees as Knotel’s unique offering and what it means to sell “headquarters as a service.”