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A fascinating ripple effect caused by the pandemic and shaping the future of work is flexibility. Not just in when we work, but also where. Co-working spaces have typically been the domain of entrepreneurs and start-up businesses, but could they also help SMEs and larger business to attract the best talent whilst minimising risk?
In this episode, Cofruition founder Sam Floy speaks with Ceinwen Jarvis, Global Head of Marketing at Second Home, a brand is best known for its plant-filled co-working spaces. Ceinwen and Sam talk about the future of work and the office, how choosing flexible workspace is a strategic decision, and how their jungle-like offices are about more than just aesthetics.
If you have listened to the episode and would like to find out more, visit Second Home's website or follow them on Instagram.
Ceinwen suggested reading:
If you are feeling academic...
E.O. Wilson, Biophilia
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
And if you are not...
Florence Williams, The Nature Fix
To be inspired by and get hold of F.O.M.O. generating toilet paper, visit Who Gives A Crap's website. You can learn about the B-Corp movement and how to join it here.
EPISODE SUMMARRY
Sam Floy, the host of the podcast Better Business Radar, interviews Ceinwen Jarvis, the Global Head of Marketing at Second Home. They discuss how Second Home differentiates itself from other coworking spaces by incorporating biophilic architecture and creating a visually stunning environment with thousands of plants and trees. Biophilic architecture mimics nature to create spaces that make people happier and healthier. The demand for flexible workspaces has increased over the past decade due to the rise in startups and entrepreneurs who want access to collaborative environments and attractive office spaces. Second Home offers various products for teams of all sizes, from solopreneurs to larger companies with up to 200 employees. Their goal is to create an environment where businesses can grow and eventually transition into their own dedicated offices.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Sam Floy
What the future of work looks like is a topic I keep coming back to on this podcast. So many factors are changing the way we work and want to work. From emerging technologies like generative AI and Chat GPT to the impact of the pandemic on our habits and expectations, it feels like we're still in a transitional phase that will shape the future of how we work. So I'm on a mission to speak to experts who can shine a light on how to build the best working culture, spaces and policies to make sure we are growing successful businesses and places people want to work. This is Better Business Radar, a practical and dare we say, inspiring podcast about smart ways to grow better businesses. And I'm Sam Floy, a B2B entrepreneur and founder of Cofruition the company behind this podcast, bringing you insights from interesting thinkers, doers leaders, and experts.
Sam Floy
Today's guest is Ceinwen Jarvis, global head of marketing at international coworking brand Second Home, an experienced marketer with over ten years developing and executing b to b and b to c marketing strategies and growth campaigns. Ceinwen is a startup and scale up specialist, helping companies drive positive change and growth. Second Home are known for their bright space and plant filled interiors. They've opened locations in London, Lisbon, and La, cutting through and creating success in an increasingly crowded market. I was excited to talk to Ceinwen about the future of work and what we could all learn from Second Home's. Clearly very successful approach. We kicked off the conversation with Ceinwen explaining how Second Home differentiates itself from the many other coworking spaces out there.
Ceinwen Jarvis
So I think Second Home is pretty distinct in the market. We've been going for about eight years now, and the look and feel, I know you've seen what we look like. But, you know, with the biophilic architecture, all the colors, thousands of plants and trees across all of our buildings, it's just visually so arresting and so different to anything else in the market. So people walk through the door, whether that's your own internal team or your clients or your decision makers or your investors or members. The thing that people sort of almost take a step back when they walk in the building and say, what the h*** is this? This is amazing. How can this be an office? And really, the thinking behind Second Home is that this is how all of our spaces should be. We've spent so many years as humans building these concrete cities, boxes, no natural anything in them.
Ceinwen Jarvis
And that's not where we're meant to be as humans. We're meant to be in nature. And that is a core fundamental principle of Second Home that we're built with biophilic architecture, the plants and trees, whilst, yes, it feels like the world is sort of cottoning onto this, perhaps, and you see plants and trees everywhere, but that's been something that Second Home has done since day dot. And it's all to help members be happier, healthier, more creative, and help them grow in their personal, professional life. And I think that is still it's almost like still the world is discovering this is like what we actually should be doing. I think the pandemic did open more industries up to this way of thinking because everyone had this moment where were inside and were sitting in our gardens and we realized that actually, sunlight and plants and grass is quite nice, really, and quite productive.
Ceinwen Jarvis
But we've always said the Second Home is like the future of work. And almost in those awful few years that we all had, a lot of the world's caught onto this and they can come to us and live it every day.
Sam FLoy
Yeah. Amazing. You said the word biophilic. I've never heard that word. Is that like fancy word for plants and naturey?
Ceinwen Jarvis
So theory of biophilia was developed by a guy called EO. Wilson. He's a Harvard professor. And Second Homes got we call them the thinkers of Second Home. There's sort of 1012 of them, which all have these kind of big, grand ideas for how the world, how us as humans should work. And and our founders and our architects kind of took these principles and weave them into the building and weave them into the business model and weave them into the way that we behave with our members. And EO. Wilson is sort of one of the most core of those thinkers to our brand and what we do. So biophilic architecture is architecture that mimics nature, that brings nature inside. So theory of biophilia is that us as humans are supposed to be in nature. We're not meant to be in concrete, we're not meant to be in square boxes.
Ceinwen Jarvis
We're meant to be outside finding nuts and living with the animals. And he did incredibly smart work in developing this and testing it and sort of observing humanity. And it proves that when we're in spaces that mimic nature, when we're outside, like, we're happier, we're healthier. And there's another amazing study that I'm sure we probably all did when were in psychology class. And it's the study that they looked at people in hospital wards, and half the control had a brick wall, and half the control looked out on a beautiful garden, and the group that looked out into nature got better quicker. And it sort of feels like it shouldn't actually work that way. This sort of feels a bit woo and a bit magical, but it's actually completely true. And fundamentally, we're just animals with nice clothes. So, yes, biophilic architecture, it's an amazing movement.
Ceinwen Jarvis
There's really wonderful resources on disease, really, people are particularly interested, and they can go and watch those. And if you're very smart, probably smarter than I am, you can read EO. Wilson's book on biophilia and learn all about it, all the academia sites. But yeah, biophilic architecture is creating space that mimic nature. And that is what all of our spaces are. You go into our Hollywood space has got 6500 plants and trees. It's a two acre campus. The private offices, our studios, as we call them, are sort of nestled within this lush, green urban jungle. Our Spitterfield site, where I am just outside this room, has got trees filling the double height atrium. Holland Park's got trees growing out the floor. It really is kind of something else.
Sam Floy
I mean, I think whenever you measure an office space in acres, you know you're in their face. Could you give us a bit of an oversight as to the coworking space market? I know there was like Regis, I think, was sort of the original sort office hotel set up. And then it seems like in the last ten years, the concepts seem to emerge and then now there's sort of various different players.
Ceinwen Jarvis
So, yeah, you're right. Kind of in the last ten years and we're part of that boom, the landscape has completely changed. This kind of need for flexible workspace and the opportunity and kind of the market for it has emerged. And before that, you were looking at your big players like Eurgis. You've got big people like TOGG that come in, but then you've got these smaller, more boutique places like Second Home For A Huckle Tree not I should name drop them, but anyway but, yeah, you've got these sort of smaller, more boutique businesses that have been able to tap into this change in workspace and in work patterns. And I think it goes hand in hand with the sort of entrepreneur boom over the last couple of decades. I guess it feels like there's so many more startups, there's so many more opportunities. And if you're going to start something, call it 15 years ago, your options were to a go somewhere and spend a lot of money on a workspace or work out of your kitchen or go to a coffee shop and until you've made enough money to go to be able to afford that expensive office.
Ceinwen Jarvis
And so this was a real need by entrepreneurs, by small businesses, to have somewhere where they could get access to all of the benefits that come from an office, like collaborative environment. Just basic things like tea, coffee, being able to sit on a desk that is good for your back. All of these things are just so important. And so the market's really changed over the last decade and there's more providers and there's more options and it's enabling this kind of economic, business entrepreneurial boom, really. And when you think about the war on talent as well, and how do you, as a small business owner, attract the best people into your business so that you can become the next big player? I think workspaces play a part in that. If you're say a tech business, that you're trying to get someone in the option is they're going to go off to Facebook or off to Google or how do you compete with that?
Ceinwen Jarvis
You can't compete on salaries, you probably can't compete on benefits, but can you give them an amazing environment where they can work from? Yeah, this has sort of changed and I think you can see that in the number of small businesses that have emerged.
Sam Floy
I went to visit my accountants and then moved office and I was, oh, why have you moved? And he was just like, basically this, they're an SME and he was like, you know the types of graduates we want otherwise go to Deloitte or PwC. And if we're in sort of fairly boring office that he was quite happy with, he was like, well, we just can't they're just not happy. So they've gone to this place which is more natural light, they can see the ocean, they've got a nice canteen and that's part of the equation, basically. So I can really see how it's a rising tide. Little boats.
Ceinwen Jarvis
We've had clients over the years, members over the years tell us that here we Hadston young had one of their startup offshoots businesses based in our space a few years ago, and that was something that they really communicated to us. For them, their clients were our members, so for them it made sense to have this kind of subdivision in a co working space. But they said our clients feel completely different about us when they visit us here. It says something about the work we're doing then our clients, the people we're working with. And I think that's really true. No matter what size you are, you should have the best space around you and you should have access to the best facilities and you should be able to give your team members the best experiences. It shouldn't just be reserved for the people who have trillions of dollars to pay for a brilliant glass office.
Sam Floy
You mentioned there has just been this sort of boom in startups and entrepreneurs and solopreneurs and all these companies which are sort of an obvious fit for co working spaces. But you then also mentioned EY, and if you do a pie chart of individual entrepreneurs, two to five people, companies, et cetera, what does the makeup sort of roughly look like?
Ceinwen Jarvis
It's a real mix, to be honest. So we have different products depending on different sites. So we have week one studios, that's a private office. Those studios can be a team of two, all the way up to team of 200 with multiple offices across the space. And then we have our roaming and our resident product, which is more for your solopreneurs individuals. Freelancers, where you have a space within the shared workspace and private offices, makes up a big proportion of our membership, 60, 70%, because of the volume of teams. One studio. Could be ten, could be 100, could be 50. But what we see in Second Home because all of the facilities and the community team that we've got there and all of the events that we put on and just the networking opportunities and the connections that we make, we have got a lot of amazing growth stories where someone's come in as a roamer hired their first team.
Ceinwen Jarvis
They've stayed in the roaming space networked. Our roaming space are hot desking rooms, so that's like, you can actually lean across the desk and make a connection. What are you working on? We see that happen all the time with our members. And then you grow a little bit more and you get a smaller office, and then you upgrade to a bigger office and a big office and a bigger office until you kind of at the size where you probably want to go and have your own dedicated name on the door type place. And that's something that we really try and drive and we want to create an environment where that happens, like more and more and more, which I think we do quite successfully, really.
Sam Floy
There's something about 200 people and they will have 200 people who come to coworking space or to come to a Second Home.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Yeah, at the moment our biggest team is in its 50s, but with Hybrid working, those team members will actually be it will be more than that, but they kind of get an office for the size that they need in each day. But in the past we've had companies that have taken multiple offices. They'll take a whole floor in Hollywood as well. We have companies that have four or five pods, garden pods, to create almost like a mini campus for their business.
Sam Floy
Does that ruin the Bible for the solo, for the smaller companies, or the people who sort of if you're all quite early startups, there's sort of this shared sense of relatability, whereas I imagine when you get to sort of like 200 people might be sort of coming to work for a different reason. And I don't know if that changes the vibe at all.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Yeah, I don't think it does, really. I've never seen it. It changed the vibe, especially in Second Home. Anyway, I think we put on an awful lot of social activities. We have, like, I think with T at Three, where every week people can get together over a cup of tea and a cake and kind of share what they're working on. And you could argue that a lot of these activities are more naturally positioned for your solopreneurs or individuals because you're on your own. So you need that connection more than, say, in a big team. But that just doesn't happen if you're a studio member. You've got all of your team members who also want connections, who are also growing their careers, who are loving being in a co working space because of the vibrancy and I think if you're a company that chooses to put your office in a workspace, you're choosing to do that because of all of the benefits.
Ceinwen Jarvis
If you're just choosing to come because it's somewhere to park your balm and get your laptop out, then there's probably no reason why not. You might as well get your own private thing and just keep your own team and focus on that. If you're going to come to a space, you're doing it because you want your maybe it's just as simple as you want to be able to give your team added benefits. Most workspaces will have a member of wellness program like we do. We have everything from meditation to yoga to boxing to running around Holland Park. It's a real mix. And that's a benefit, obviously, if you're on your own. But that's a benefit if you're a business owner to say, well, maybe at SME level, maybe you can't afford to do benefits like a gym membership or a this ship, but we're paying for a space that actually almost every day your team members could go to a different wellness class.
Ceinwen Jarvis
And I think it's a bit of self selection for companies that come into a flexible workspace provider because there's so many other options if you really just want to get, let's say, a cheap office and somewhere to put your team. And if you're going to come to a co working space, you want to do it because you're going to meet loads more people. It might be just as a founder to have some other founders to network with other people that are going through the same challenges as you. Maybe you're on a growth trajectory and you want to speak to someone who's done it already. It's just all of those things to kind of help your business grow. And I think that is why people come to flexible workspaces. Of course, there's the flexibility and the nuts and bolts and the price benefits to being able to have that flexibility and have someone who's kind of serving you in your business.
Ceinwen Jarvis
You can't get that in an office.
Sam Floy
That you've rented because your role is chief marketing officer.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Yeah. Global head of marketing.
Sam Floy
Yeah, head of marketing. And so when you think about the messaging and you think about how to sort of get the name out, I mean, how much of it is don't rent your own office, come to a co working space. Coworking space is great versus you're considering a co working space. This is why we're the best.
Ceinwen Jarvis
The main thing that we communicate, we try and always think about what's the value? Why is someone choosing to come to a coworking space taking us out of the equation? Just that fundamental shift. Why would I want to come to one of these places? And there's a thousand reasons really that you could think but we've found from talking to our members, why do they come and choose us, what's the main benefit and value for them? And it is the human connection. And I think that's always been a core pillar of Second Home. We really prioritize the space. As I said, the look and feel is just second to none. So of course that's a big factor in why people come here. Two, the community or like minded entrepreneurs that you've got globally and three are our kind of commitment to creativity. So we do mad things like open a bookshop across the street because we want people to have creativity spark.
Ceinwen Jarvis
We have nooks and crannies all across the building to allow these kind of cross pollination and surprise meetings. So those have always been like the core pillars of Second Home. But the community angle really is the value piece. It's like the emotional core as to why you want to be here, whether that's I'm an entrepreneur and I want other founders to talk to and to learn from or I'm going to grow my business because I'm going to meet my next employee here. So we really hone in on that. That's what we communicate. We try and explain to people, like, yes, there's all the practical ways that you're going to meet people and you're going to be able to interact. But actually, why is that important? Because if you're just going down, the almost like the factual things of a co working space is great because it allows you to have x price benefit.
Ceinwen Jarvis
That's part of the story. But that's like a later conversation. People buy with their hearts, not their heads. And I think we want to foster relationships with our members where they have big brand loyalty to us, but they really feel that we're there to support them, to serve them and we need to demonstrate why we do that better than anyone else. Otherwise it will always, with every as with every product, it will always just come down to the world, who's going to give me the most money off? Which is not, you know, that's not where we want to be. For us and for businesses, their world and kind of where they're going and growing and is just so important. It shouldn't just come down to price.
Sam Floy
Is your sense that you're sort of.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Upper market, like, would we class ourselves as a premium product?
Sam Floy
Yeah, price premium or I don't know.
Ceinwen Jarvis
If it's yeah, we would put ourselves in the kind of higher end of the market. But then aesthetically, looking around the office, it is a premium product. It's designed in a way to, like everything I said before, make you happier, healthier, more creative, et cetera. I guess if you likened it to a hotel brand, it's the Standard versus the Premier Inn or something and you're obviously going to pay more for a better quality product and a better experience. And I always think the Standard is a really good analogous brand for us and kind of how we want to be positioned in the market, in our own market. How they've created this amazing brand, really. In the hotel, it's almost synonymous with cool, with fun, with playful. It's a lovely brand.
Sam Floy
Better Business Radar is a podcast made by us, the team at Cofruition. We offer an all in one solution for high value service companies looking for a simple and effective way to grow. A lot of businesses don't need Facebook ads or Trip funnel campaigns. They need to have a systematic way to demonstrate thought leadership, expand their network, and have the consistent, high quality content to stay on people's radar. This is what we offer with our fully managed company podcast. If you're interested in hiring us for your business, then head the Cofruition.com/BBR, where you can learn more and get 10% off the setup of your show. The link is also in the episode description.
Sam Floy
Now back to the episode.
Sam Floy
We've got to talk about plants. So I realized that I'd heard of the name Second Home, but I'd also received several videos of basically any friend of mine who went to Lisbon and had to work from a co working space. They were compelled to send me a video of just being like, what is this place? I've never actually been. I understand it's like a greenhouse, basically. And there's just like, plants everywhere.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Yeah, you should go. It's incredible. It is amazing there. So Lisbon is actually my favorite site. Always has been. Absolutely stunning. So our space there is above the mercado de ribria in Kaise de saudre, forgive my awful Portuguese pronunciations. And so it's in this amazing old Victorian market, kind of looking down on the now new timeout market and the actual old fruit and veg market that's been there for 100 years or whatever. And so we've taken over a floor and half of our space is a cafe, a roaming space. It's beautiful evekline blue color. And then you walk through into the main workspace and it is like going into a greenhouse, I guess, if you sort of hark your mind back to a horrible 80s, almost like the Dilbert cartoon with the horrid. I remember my first job had sort of felt like prison walls around my desk.
Sam Floy
Yeah, the little, like, cubicle.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Yeah, cubicle. That's the word. Yeah. To kind of give you that privacy in your desk in an open plan office. A horrible, like, just horrid way of working. But obviously, for certain businesses, you do need a bit of privacy. You can't just be open all the time. You've got lots of things to do, especially in Lisbon, where the majority of the members have resident desks, so their desk is always their desk. You've got all bits and pieces. We're all sort of hoarders, I guess, in our own way. We want pieces of paper and pens, but we've used plants in there to create that privacy whilst allowing it to still be very communal. So it's one giant room, circular bendy desks the whole way up, all covered with plants in between each resident vines growing up into the Victorian rafters. And it's so wonderful. It's a bit like when you walk into the hot house at queue and your breath sort of is taken away by the amazing jungle and foliage and just the arresting nature of seeing that many different textures and plants and leaves.
Ceinwen Jarvis
And it's just amazing. So that space is just so unique and beautiful.
Sam Floy
Also, apparently the bit which I hadn't quite plucked was apparently very good sound absorption, so you don't need to go off and go to a call booth because you can just be speaking and no one else is going to hear you, which it was like, yeah, I haven't quite thought that one before.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And the tech there, we always do try and sort of push boundaries when we open a new building. And the tech at Lisbon has got this kind of system where it recognizes the temperature outside and it will sort of regulate, so the temperature just maintains there. So when it's hot outside, it will be cool inside, and when it's cold, it will be hot, but without sort of cranking on the AC or cranking up the heat. So it's quite eco friendly.
Sam Floy
Nice. So, operationally, are there any health and safety hazards with having so many plants so close to, like, wires and all these electrics? Because I imagine they need to be watered.
Sam Floy
Yes.
Ceinwen Jarvis
We have an amazing team in each market who kind of I do often think it must be a bit like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. They're sort of forever going around watering the plants, but they really maintain them and look after them. And there's a lot of clever tricks of pipes and things that feed the multiple different plant pots, but it's all designed, there's no sort of plant watering next to a big plug. All safe.
Sam Floy
I imagine it would be.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Yeah.
Sam Floy
I was just curious, like, if there would have to be any innovation around it, how often do the plants get replaced?
Ceinwen Jarvis
Not too often, because they're maintained so well. If you had to replace the plants so frequently, that would obviously be a huge cost. So it's actually in maintaining them and having a dedicated team that look after our plants, that actually sort offsets itself. And also from an environmental point of view, it wouldn't be very good of us if were sort of bringing in a bunch of plants, letting them die, replacing in our own little way in our cities, we want to champion biodiversity. And I think that goes back to the whole we're not meant to be in these concrete zones where we've just destroyed everything. We want to create a little pocket of nature in our cities and this is our way of doing it.
Sam Floy
How much does this cost? I'm sure someone somewhere has done a spreadsheet and is like, actually there's a great ROI on it, I'm sure.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Yeah, I think so. And for us, it is such a USP as well, and such a core tenant of the brand and our values and what we stand for and the space that we want to create and the value we want to give to people, that it's a core part of the business. It's like a core business expense. Anything we spend, it's worth it.
Sam Floy
Yeah, you mentioned that a few years ago. There was this sort of rather horrible couple of years where there's a global Pandemic, people with office jobs where stop working from home and then we sort of come out of the other end and people sort of start to perhaps rethink their relationship to work and where they're going to work. What's your sense on, almost fundamentally what people's relationship is going to be with the office going forward and how some of those trends might sort of play out in the coming years?
Ceinwen Jarvis
I think that the biggest change since the Pandemic has been this sort of openness. And it's really interesting, actually. I know I'm sort of going to pivot on what I was going to say then, but there was an article I saw that said investec have demanded that their employees return to the office for four days a week. So I think it's interesting to watch how things are playing out. But when I see articles like that, my first question is, but why force your team to be there? If people are office workers? There's such a benefit to being in person. That goes without saying. And that's why we create our spaces. And that's why flexible workspace, I think has seen quite although an awful couple of years in the pandemic. Now we're coming out is seeing a big rise because there are a lot of businesses that maybe would never have looked at a flexible workspace.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Oh, we're too big. Oh, we're too established that now. Can look at that because they've got hybrid policies. They've realized that the Pandemic hit and they suddenly had all these overheads that they were liable for. You've got to pay for an office, you got to pay for this, you got to pay, that all. You had to spend weeks of your life at maybe the worst time of your business, having to unpick yourself from various utility costs. Just awful for some businesses. Whereas you come to a flexible workspace provider, there's someone else who's taking care of that for you. You can just concentrate completely on your business and what you need to achieve. All of that nuts and bolts of the office is taken care of. We've seen that in the people that are coming into Second Home and I think that this kind of democratization of work has been quite an amazing change, actually.
Ceinwen Jarvis
I think it's allowed more people to come back into. The workforce. When you're hybrid working, just take parents as one demographic, this flexible working, knowing that you can drop your kids off and then come in for a few hours to get your meetings done, to get those important one one, or team conversations or have those moments that you have to be in person together. Brilliant. But then if you need to be at home, you can. And I think that spaces like Second Home and flexible workspace allow businesses to give that sort of flexibility to their teams that they can't get. And I think that I think if you're paying for your own office somewhere in the city, of course you're going to force people to come in because you're paying through the nose for this space that's empty. But I actually think it's an interesting one.
Ceinwen Jarvis
And I think more and more businesses will move into flexible because actually it's a cost benefit for them. It means they can attract better talent. It's better for the talent because when they come in, they've got this incredible space to be more creative, to have those connections. There's benefits from this change in work. And I think also there's no one size fits all anymore. And that's been really interesting for us because there's just not one person to talk to anymore. Like even you say the concept of hybrid working or flexible products or any of that stuff, it's like that means something different to every single person. So that's been a really interesting development. But I think the industry has responded and I think there are better options and I think people are working in a better way and I think they appreciate so much more when you are together and what you can and can't do in an office together.
Ceinwen Jarvis
And like, why are you coming in? You're coming in to have the connections, to be creative, to spark a new idea. And you can't do that sort of stuff if you're just on a screen all the time. But then there are times when being able to pop off home is a real benefit. And I think that's also why you've seen a lot of people, perhaps since the Pandemic starting their own businesses because they've realized that they value that freedom and yes, that's in controlling their own disease. Being able to say, well, actually, I work better coming in at 12:00 and working until 09:00, great. Or there's an event on that night, so I'm going to come in for that. Or I want to go to a breakfast event and then do some work. Or I want to work on a Saturday.
Sam Floy
Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? You always get philosophical. I find it really sort of like, why am I coming to what is it that I'm because before it was just of course you go to the office because that's where you work and now it's like, okay, which elements of your work you do? And it almost sort of gets quite start to sort of zone in on these different aspects of it. And I think it's interesting seeing some companies that for example will say we're going to be fully remote but every three months we will do a week together in an off site somewhere. And that's sort of how they package together their in person creativity blah, blah plus all the other flexibilities and just sort of seeing the different ways of having the jigsaw puzzle put it all together.
Ceinwen Jarvis
It's really fascinating because like you say, the one size fits all before was Monday to Friday, nine to five or thereabouts like we're all in the office and now everything's different. And I think I'm sort of thinking of that very explicitly from an office job point of view. But there are exceptions to the rule of course. There are some industries, there are some roles that need that are going to naturally just have more structure because that's how that role needs to be conducted and that's how you will do your best work. But if that is your profession, then you understand that because everyone wants to do well and some jobs you will need to be in your 8 hours a day, five days a week. But then for others I think it is all about doing your best work and where is that going to happen.
Ceinwen Jarvis
And I think it's quite fascinating watching businesses figure that out. Like you say, is it coming in once a month together to kind of set the next strategy, work out any kinks, then go away and do the work? That's really interesting. Is it coming in once or twice a week? Is it actually still coming in five days a week? But the timings there's no the rigidity of presentism 09:00 I'm at my desk. I think we've all realized that there's a lot of benefits to allowing this more flexibility. I do really believe that we need to be together like the human connection to be able to come. If you're just completely siloed in a room on your own, you're never going to have those moments of creativity or breakthrough. And I think that's also why spaces like Second Home have always been popular with solopreneurs entrepreneurs, people that are starting it because you want that connection and that might just be a social connection.
Ceinwen Jarvis
It might just be I'm building this thing on my own and here's someone to talk to, want to talk about the succession finale. And it might be that you want to share ideas or it might be that you're looking for someone to partner in your business. There's no way you're going to do that sitting on your own at home. But then there's other work you've got a report to do, a spreadsheet to fill out. Why commute to sit on your own doing that work? And I think that's what businesses are still figuring out like what works for my business, what works for my industry, what is for my team. I think it's really interesting. There was a great report, I'm just trying to remember who did it, but there was a really great report that came out a few months ago where they've really kind of looked at the future of work and interviewed lots of people and there's a huge generational divide on it of what different generations want.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Where are you at in your stage of life? And there's all these new people that are entering the workforce that don't know any different. Some people love it, gives them flexibility, some people hate it because they're stalling on their careers. And I think you have to look at these things on a case by case basis, like there is no longer and there never will be a blanket. This is how we all work. And I do believe that businesses like this investec kind of draconian like you're beck in four days time, they probably, definitely will lose workers because people have got into the habit of being able to go to the doctors or just do what they need to do for life. And I think all businesses need to kind of take that on board and listen to their teams. And there are so many options now in places like Second Home, in other flexible riders for all sizes of businesses that really you can do whatever you like and there'll be a solution that fits your company.
Sam Floy
Yeah, I think that's the bit which I've never fully grasped is that if you are a large company that could afford to have your own office, you might still nevertheless choose to go to a flexible, co working space because there's other fun things that happen there because I think that does slightly change the equation a bit. Like, I know my accountant was a little bit smaller, but it was a strategic decision to say this is how we're going to work, as opposed to we're going to have X pay rise or X pension or whatever it's like, no, this way in which we're working is going to be our sell to our employees.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Yeah. And I think it sort of I'm sure it enhances the culture. And if people have chosen to put their larger business in a flexible space, I think it says a bit about the culture of the company. I think it says a bit about the leadership style. I think it says quite a lot about the sort of talent they're hoping to attract. And I'm sure larger industries, larger businesses have for many years, obviously not a new phenomenon, but the rise of more entrepreneurial companies sort of trying to disrupt their industries and then attracting the talent and they're able to move faster. Smart leaders of these larger companies will be looking at what they're doing and who's working in that space. And you could think about being in a flexible space to almost keep an eye on some of your competitors. Do you then make a partnership?
Ceinwen Jarvis
Do you make a connection? Do you pinch some staff? Do you acquire them? There's so many opportunities when you're in this kind of mix of businesses and people and you're making connections, and that might be through a facilitated meeting, like an event, a networking event, a talk or whatever. It might just be wandering through the corridor and chatting at the coffee station to someone that you've never met before. That's one of my favorite things to do here is just like often in the lift, makes them awkward. Small dog, but you meet such interesting people, and I'm sort of forever blown away about people that are starting something. New or have started something new and are kind of changing the world through their business and their opportunity and have been brave to step into the big wide world and make something out of it. I think it's incredible.
Sam Floy
Yeah. Ceinwen, we're sort of coming towards the end of the interview. There's a couple of questions that we always finish with great to get your thoughts on. So first is who inspires you in your industry?
Ceinwen Jarvis
So I had a bit of a think about this in my industry, and actually, for me, I consider that in the marketing industry. And so I think for me, it's brands like Who Gives a Crap? The toilet paper brand. I find them endlessly fascinating. They've turned toilet paper into, like, a FOMO item. Incredible. I was away this weekend. I went to the Lake District in their bathroom. They had. Who gives a grab? Toilet paper? And as soon as I saw it, I was like, oh, I fit a nice house here. How have they done that with toilet paper? I'm endlessly impressed and enthused and inspired by what they're doing. And then other than that, in our member community, like I said a bit ago, you meet people as you're wandering around the corridors and you ask them what their business is doing, and you think, wow, you've made that out of nothing.
Ceinwen Jarvis
It was an idea, and you created it, and you've made jobs, and you're changing something in your own small bit of the world. I find that endlessly fascinating. Second Homes are B Corp, and I love the movement that B Corp are doing, and businesses of all different shapes and sizes and scales committing to doing something good in the world. Those are the sort of people and industries and businesses that I'm inspired by, really.
Sam Floy
And if you could name one invaluable book or resource or something that would be a good stepping stone into this world, what would you recommend? Well, other than EO. Wilson.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Other than EO. Wilson. I can't have that one. Okay, so like I said before, Second Home has got quite a few we call them the thinkers of Second Home. So they are incredibly smart people who've done incredible academic work into the way humans behave, biophilia, et cetera. So there are a few. If you're particularly smart and you have a lot of time, you can read Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities. She's an American Canadian writer and activist, works about urban renewal and cities. She's all the very core thinker about the way that we've created our spaces and the way that we think humans should behave in the cities. If you've got a bit less time than sitting and reading a big academic journal, there's an amazing book by an author called Florence Williams. It's called The Nature Fix, and it is about why nature makes us happier, healthier, more creative.
Ceinwen Jarvis
It's really accessible. It's a really great read. And we always recommend that we give that book away to a lot of people when they join Second Home as they're like. Read this and you will understand everything about biophilia and everything we're trying to do. And you don't have to have a doctorate from Harvard.
Sam Floy
Now you get it.
Sam Floy
Now you get why there are all these plants everywhere. Excellent. Cool. Ceinwen, how can people learn a bit more about you? Learn more about Second Home?
Ceinwen Jarvis
Yeah. Well, they can go and visit us on secondhome.IO or follow us on Instagram at secondhome underscore IO.
Sam Floy
Very cool. Great. Well, Ceinwen, thanks so much. This was a really great chat.
Ceinwen Jarvis
Lovely to speak to you. Thank you.
Sam Floy
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Better Business Radar. It's been great to speak with Ceinwen about the future of work. If you'd like to find out more about Ceinwen or Second Home, visit secondhome.IO or connect with Ceinwen on LinkedIn. Links are in the episode description. If you enjoyed the episode and would like more insights from leading thinkers and doers who can help you be smart and grow your business, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast. I'm Sam Floy. This has been Better Business Radar. See you next time.
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