project:P³

“bringing the work place to your space”

The P³ initiative stands for “Providers | Places | People” and is a community project aimed at increasing the resilience of local business economies in all regions, maintaining the integrity and sustainability of the high-street, and retaining the green benefits of a reduction in commuter traffic by minimising the need to travel great distances for employment.

The intention is to democratise the working space by connecting companies, local work space and the work force, providing benefit to local micro economies in towns and villages across the county whilst creating strength and flexibility at the macro level in the face of adverse market volatility.

By increasing the range of options that enable employers to safely mobilise employees back to productive employment, the economy may be sustained just as personal risk is also minimised, and without sacrificing the environmental improvements associated with a reduction in commuting that have become so evident in recent months.

A distributed work force ...

Work from home (WFH) practises have been enacted on a large scale as a consequence of the limitations placed on social contact due to the COVID-19 crisis, and this has enabled many people to bring greater equilibrium to their personal/professional life balance, creating a more fulfilling family life without compromising work ethics or the ability to perform.

The positive impact to the environment is evident for all to see, hear and even smell! The reduction in commuter traffic has inevitably saved some of the estimated 170,000 road traffic casualties of all severities that the UK experiences every year, however, it is inevitable that the negative financial impact of social distancing must also be addressed.

Whilst many companies will support WFH practises, some more regressive firms will revert to outdated practises and insist upon a return to centralised work place employment in commuter dense locations, irrespective of their ability to alternatively disperse their employees. This approach does nothing to improve work force resilience or expand the distribution of economic benefit brought by social interaction.

The P³ approach ...

Providers | Places | People - In the P³ approach, providers are companies that recognise the medium-long term benefits of creating a distributed work force and who actively engage in outsourcing their currently centralised employee base to disperse it to multiple different places, to bring the work space to the locality of the people by utilising a wide range of premises as employment hubs.

The office rental marketplace can benefit from the stimulation of disruption, opening new opportunities just as old ones are closed. Focus may move from large single-tenant complexes to smaller and smaller hubs that can still provide workspaces to multiple enterprises and small businesses. Most importantly, the move from single locations to a dispersed employee base has a profound economic effect on local high-streets, allowing a myriad of services to flourish and support a now locally resident and operational workforce.

Even as we witness the threat of mass unemployment approaching, a wider variety of new job opportunities can grow around the newly distributed workforce. This approach reduces wide area risk but maintains optimal work force engagement just as it sustains economic recovery, providing a resilient and flexible approach. It supports a sliding scale of work force dispersal, from the centralised monolithic corporate office, through the distributed work space hubs of varying sizes right down to pure WFH practises.

Ironically, we have already seen the effects of the complete opposite of this approach, as so many corporations close their high-street premises (such as within the banking sector) and we witness see the associated decline in the local economy! By reintroducing a distributed workforce to our towns and villages, we increase their economic success.

We have to accept that the distribution of free market office utilisation has a profound effect on local infrastructure and economic viability. By creating a much wider opportunity base in a larger range of locations a greater degree of resilience for local economies is created, but, this requires an ongoing negotiation between providers, places and people! With realistic engagement and expectations - even moderation of usual behaviours - we can build the working ecology that will sustain our towns and villages into the next decades.

What can you do?

Without a self-sustaining approach the UK economy will continue to face uncertainty for the decades to come, as local and national economic viability is regularly compromised by work force interruption of one form or another, whether via a pandemic or purely economic factors. An innovative disruptive approach must start with the community! Forward thinking companies and office holdings need to convene in order to create the disruptive but stimulating move to distribute the work force and invigorate our high-streets through the micro economy which in turn builds a resilient macro economy.

Although the primary aim is clear, there are many ways of accomplishing the final goal. If you think that you or your company can make a difference, then get involved as the P³ initiative needs you - only by private and public sector community engagement and support from the work force can a new environmentally sustainable way of working evolve, invigorating our high-streets and providing quality of life and balance, now and for the future.

We want to hear from office space owners, companies and even employees - people who have either the assets, impetus and desire to mobilise the work force in innovative ways, to bring economic benefit to towns and villages across the county, building resilience and flexibility into a new way of working for the benefit of the community and the environment.

We’re also interested in hearing from bloggers, vloggers and podcasters who want to engage with supply chain innovation and leadership projects, aimed at providing sustainable environmental and economic benefits.