Why the Office Is Now a People Game: Joe McGinley’s Expert Take
Updated: 11 hours ago
When I started Iconic Offices in 2013, I thought I was building a property company. Thirteen years later, I see it very differently. We were building a people and service business, delivered through great property. The building matters, but it is only the beginning.
Key Takeaways
Location and design attract attention; people, service and culture determine the day-to-day experience. The best workplaces give people different settings for different kinds of work, while giving businesses the flexibility to adapt as they grow. And in an era of hybrid working, the office has to give people a meaningful reason to be there.
The building is only the beginning
When I started Iconic Offices, I was focused almost entirely on product-market fit.
I came from an estate agency background and could see a gap between the flexible office space being offered and what customers were actually asking for. I combined that customer feedback with experience in interiors, furniture, and refurbishment and created my own version of the product.
The response was immediate. Our first building was fully licensed before the initial refurbishment was even complete. Once we knew the model worked, we moved quickly.
But after six or seven buildings, something became clear. As the quality of the physical workspace increased, expectations around service increased too.
That was the point where my view of the business began to change.
Two offices can have equally strong locations, furniture and design and still create completely different experiences. The difference is the people operating them and the culture they create. Design might get somebody through the door, but people determine whether that promise is delivered every day after that.
What does being in the “people game” actually mean?
A good building is important. So are location, design and facilities. But those things alone do not create a great workplace experience.
As I see it, anyone with sufficient capital can create a nice office. The harder part is delivering the experience consistently, every day. People need different things at different points of the day: somewhere to focus, somewhere to collaborate, somewhere to take a confidential call, somewhere to meet a client and somewhere to have an informal conversation with a colleague. The role of the workplace is to create the conditions for those things to happen naturally.
That comes down to people.
It is how somebody is greeted when they arrive. It is whether an issue is owned and resolved quickly. It is whether the team running the building understands how each company wants to work, how they want clients welcomed and what matters to their employees.
That is why we have invested so heavily in our on-site Community Teams and customer experience. Technology and systems can remove friction, but they cannot replace judgement, ownership or genuine hospitality.
Buildings don't host people. People do. Technology and systems should remove friction but they cannot replace judgement, warmth, ownership or genuine hospitality. Often the best service is almost invisible because something has already been anticipated or resolved.
What does a people-led flexible workspace give a growing business?
For established SMEs, scaling teams and larger organisations, the value of flexible workspace goes well beyond avoiding a traditional lease.
More choice throughout the working day. A private serviced office can act as a company’s home base, while meeting rooms, breakout settings and collaborative areas give people places to focus, meet clients, work together or simply change the environment.
The ability to adapt as the business changes. Headcount, working patterns and team structures rarely stay static. A flexible workspace can make it easier to respond without redesigning an entire office around assumptions made several years earlier.
Less operational complexity. Businesses can access the infrastructure and support around their office without management having to build and run every element themselves.
A stronger employee and client experience. Flexible should not mean sacrificing privacy or identity. The best version gives a company both: a workspace that feels like its own and a team that feels like part of theirs.
For a growing company, that means the office can become an enabler of the business rather than another operational responsibility competing for management attention.
Why is culture harder to copy than office design?
Our own member feedback reinforced this for me.
In our latest CSAT survey, Iconic Offices’ Community Teams were identified as the the single greatest strength of the customer experience, ahead of design and facilities. Our overall customer satisfaction score sits at 93%.
Internally, we have also maintained an 85% Great Place to Work score for the second year running.
Those things are connected.
You are unlikely to deliver a consistently strong customer experience unless the people providing that experience feel engaged, listened to and proud of where they work.
A fit-out can be copied. Furniture can be bought. Technology can be installed. You cannot shortcut the time it takes to build a culture of trust, hospitality and ownership. Great employee experience and great customer experience are not separate things. One feeds the other.
Why does the office still matter in a hybrid world?
Remote work is not going away, and nor should it.
But I think the growth of remote and automated work actually makes the purpose of the office clearer.
Individual tasks can increasingly happen anywhere. The office therefore has to work harder for the things that benefit from people being together: conversation, collaboration, relationships, mentoring and the informal interactions that rarely happen in a scheduled video call.
There may be fewer automatic reasons to travel to an office, but the reasons that remain will become more important.
The office should not simply be somewhere people are told to attend. It has to add something to their day.
And a successful office is not necessarily one that is full five days a week. It is one that helps the company and its people perform better. The office is not disappearing; its purpose is becoming clearer.
What should business leaders ask before choosing an office?
Start with the business, not the square footage.
How do your people actually work? Where is the company going? Are you likely to grow? How important are client meetings? What experience do you want employees to have? And how much time do you want your management team spending on the operation of the workplace itself?
For an international business entering Dublin, the priorities may be speed, flexibility and creating a credible home in a new market. SAOL Assurance’s experience of establishing its Dublin office shows how the right workspace can support that transition. For a scaling business, the priority may be the ability to add people or change how teams use the space without starting again.
Whatever the circumstances, the workspace should support where the business is going, not simply where it happens to be today.
The office is at its best when people and place work together
For me, the office is at its best when the right people are in the right roles, and the workspace supports how those people need to work.
You know it is working when people choose to use the office because it adds something to their day rather than simply because a policy tells them to be there. You see it when customers are proud to bring clients into the building, when new employees settle quickly, when teams naturally use the different environments and when companies stay, refer other businesses and grow with you.
From a founder or CEO's perspective, you are winning when the workplace stops being another operational problem they have to think about. They can focus on customers, people and growing the business, while much of the complexity behind the office disappears.
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