Introduction
The pandemic has brought with it office trends that vastly differ from the pre-pandemic days and were initially for experiential in nature now have become a way of work. ‘Hub-and-Spoke’ is one such model which has ensured continued growth and increase in agility.
What is ‘Hub-and-Spoke’ Office Model?
Hub refers to the office headquarters where day to day crucial activities like meetings, collaboration, etc of the organisation take place. It is usually located in a major city where the organisation has the main office While Spokes refers to satellite office space in small cities or in the neighbourhood of where the majority of employees live, providing them easy access to work closer to their homes. This could also mean a nearby co-working space, flexible office space and even a home office.
The idea of Hub- and- Spoke office is that employees can come together and collaborate on big projects at the ‘Hub’ while choosing the ‘Spokes’ for day-to-day routine work. Though, in the past also fewer companies were using this model for their day-to-day functioning but it has only become popular off late.
Companies particularly, in India are largely working with this hybrid model as it works well for the employer and the employees. It allows more flexibility for the employee in their work and a plausible solution for both in the fast-changing work environment. With many organisations opting for a hybrid working model and wanting their employees to work in the office at least several days a week, hub-and-spoke has become a natural choice.
How does this model help?
With the Hub-and-Spoke office model companies can optimize the office space while catering to various needs of their employees along with a professional workplace environment. This also ensures work-life balance for the employees and enhances their productivity.
It also helps companies’ source local talent pool across different geographies. Models like Hub-and-Spoke are a good solution for startup and emerging businesses where talent of different kinds may be required to carry out different jobs.
Additionally, having multiple offices in various locations can be great for attracting diverse talent. Offices today are no longer a place to get work done, instead they are more of a collaborative space where people meet, share and discuss ideas and mutually grow.
An interesting example is the Centre of Excellence set up at ‘Tiliconveli Tech Park’ in partnership with Mikro Grafeio for a globally reputed IT organisation to manage its talent acquisition by hiring and training fresh graduates from engineering, arts and science colleges in and around Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Kanyakumari districts. This is the first Hub-and-Spoke network for the company and is referred to as its Global Centre of Excellence thanks to the flexibility, accessibility, speed, cost-effectiveness, growth-orientation in this partner managed CoE.
New market opportunities
It is an ideal case scenario of operations for businesses looking to grow and tap into local markets and international businesses looking to set a foothold. It allows companies to offer flexible workplaces, scale and expand more efficiently.
This model has proved itself to be cost effective for many companies using it as there is no liability on the company and they can opt for it as per their use either by renting a space to work or on lease. Co-working spaces offer various such workable models for the companies as per their use on a day-to-day basis or monthly basis. This takes care of the budget in case it’s a small size company or a startup.
Conclusion
Hub-and-Spoke office model has proved itself to be utilitarian for various kinds of businesses as per their needs and aspirations. They offer a great choice for employees who now look for more flexibility at work in order to have a better work-life balance.
This is certainly going to be the future of work to retain talent and attract new talent especially with support services that include Hybrid offices transition & managed services.
