Kolektif House Marketing Manager İrem Arca says, "Companies will develop unique working systems in the future, which will be a combination of shrinking central offices, increasing satellite offices, and remote working." Read the full interview to learn more about the Kolektif House community and İrem's future predictions on the future of work.
Please introduce yourself and tell us about Kolektif House.
After graduating from Sabancı University with a Business and Management degree, I continued my post-graduate education at King's College London on International Marketing because of my interest and tendency to the field of marketing. After my student life, I worked as Marketing Trainee and Assistant Brand Manager at Nestle, followed by my role as the Brand Activation Manager at Groupe SEB. I have been the Marketing Manager at Kolektif House for nearly one year.Let me briefly describe Kolektif House; it opened its doors to its members in January 2015 and currently has seven different locations. In Levent (3), Şişhane, Maslak, Ataşehir, and Tomtom. First of all, by taking a leading role in the field of coworking, we provided office solutions for individuals and startups. Later on, our perspective on office solutions widened. We listened to global corporate companies' and medium-sized firms' difficulties and issues and customized solutions for them. We currently address the office needs much more comprehensively and offer office-seekers a set of solutions that includes much more than just an office. In other words, everyone who wants an ideal working space can find a suitable office and a working model with Kolektif House.
You are building a community with Kolektif House. Why do you think it's important for freelancers and remote workers to be part of a community?
The answer to this question is hidden in our motto: Love, create & inspire. The aim of Kolektif House was not only to create a place for its members but also to develop a living space where they could grow stronger within the ecosystem. In other words, it was to give new meanings to the "office" concept. In the past, when you were renting an office, you did not expect your office provider to introduce you to new investors or, on the contrary, to a new venture if you are an investor, to make you a neighbor to your customers or to create new cooperation opportunities. However, this is now possible thanks to the ecosystem we have created.Thanks to our community consisting of physical and digital Kolektif House members, we offer a meaningful network. Today, we are a strong and diverse community consisting of many freelancers and remote workers, from SMEs to global enterprise brands. We believe in the power of our network and creating a business ecosystem. There are solid collaborations between our members, who are growing every day. Considering that more meaningful and prosperous business opportunities will prosper from unity, we are multiplied within a culture that takes pleasure in working and using resources efficiently
.How do you see the future of coworking spaces? What are your expectations or predictions? Could you tell us about your predictions for the future of remote work?
After the pandemic, remote working is no longer a preference and has become a habit. With this change in the working culture, new meanings are given to the concepts of "office" and "workspace." In terms of health and productivity, employees do not want to commute or travel long distances between where they live and where they work. On the other hand, companies are afraid to tie themselves up in long-term commitments for their offices.Considering all these expectations, offices are now shaped to support flexibility and agility. When exceptionally high levels of digital access are taken into account, we can say that companies will develop unique working systems in the future, which will be a combination of shrinking central offices, increasing satellite offices, and remote working. At Kolektif House, we take a leading role in supporting the corporate dynamics by offering optimum combinations of office solutions we have prepared in line with the institutions' needs.
Are there any tools you find indispensable as you work remotely? Could you name some?
I believe in the importance of face-to-face meetings and first impressions. For this reason, I prefer to have my meetings face to face as much as possible. However, as the closest alternative, I often use all Google applications. From meetings to presentations and documents we frequently use, each tool makes it much easier to work remotely as it can be integrated. We communicate with 3rd party teams we work with via Trello and Asana for the task and project tracking.
What do you think digital nomads and freelancers should look for when picking a coworking space for themselves?
There should be no distinction between company scales. In this period in which flexible working models mark work culture, startups, SMEs, and corporate companies, will turn to office solutions that will minimize their costs, do not require an upfront investment, raise employee motivation at the highest level and support their productivity. Especially for digital nomads and freelancers, working systems should be much more flexible and facilitating. To give an example from Kolektif House, we have digitized our membership model with our new product, Digital Membership. With Digital Membership, where users can start their membership through the website without physically coming to the location, we provide individuals and institutions with a "pay as you go" experience of being a Kolektif House member.With this monthly membership model, we offer our users, who can also benefit from our KoPerks loyalty program with discounts provided exclusively to the Kolektif House members. In this single daily pass, they can work from any of our locations and have the opportunity to experience our locations all day long. The Digital Membership model, an ideal solution for remote workers, new companies, freelancers, small teams, and corporate employees who need to work together, allows users to collaborate with our members who operate in many different industries. Our members also have the flexibility to purchase additional services through the app and pay as much as they use.
