Karina Kerja is a Poland based workspace expert, next office concept manager, for the Swedish furniture company Kinnarps.
According to a recent survey, 30% of employee are happy with home working and 30% are un-happy. The flex workplace industry is also seeing a very strong of rise in interest in the last week. The dynamic is changing from one week to another, and it often comes from those who were the most reluctant towards it, just a few weeks ago. Companies are really looking at how to reduce their overhead cost, and coworking is an option for that.
That being said, the need to put safe workplace environments will remain.
We really see three phases. The lockdown was the first one. We are now leaving this phase, but the virus is still around.
In some European countries, public transportation are re-opening but with limited in capacity. No more than 30 or 50% of users is allowed. There is no way a slice of the workforce can reach up to their office, as simple a that.
On the other hand, the workforce is discovering home office. In Poland, less than 5% had a home working experience and a dedicated place to work from home. Though, the had to jump into it overnight.
However, it only work for some people, not with everybody. People want to come back.
There are a lot of differences culturally to deal with social distancing. US companies are very strict on it. Nordic countries are used to it. More latin European countries are less. In Spain, you now have to wear a mask. But all of a sudden, you have someone from Poland were it isn't. We will have to deal with a lot of different behaviors and that not something to leave in only a few weeks. We will have to address it in the coming months, if not years. So we have to prepare for it.
We have a lot of issues with social distancing. We like to be together and re-unite. There is a huge discord with our gut feelings. 
After 2 weeks, relaxation will come and we will retrieve the old habits.
Now, how to change the layout of the space to take into account ?
Kinnarps made a case study of a open space, pretty dense, 900 m2 with 130 desks. We know many coworking spaces work with such high dense standards.
Social distancing rule is now 1,5m in Poland. We made a simulation. We tried to keep empty seats with that rule in mind. The result shows that the capacity drops to 36% only, as opposed to the regular planned capacity. 
On the other hand, would you take away tables, you will keep up to 48% capacity in the workspace. It would bring a huge psychological advantage.
Where to bring the furniture not used then ?
A lot of companies are shipping it to people's home, when they have no proper set up to home working.
"Our business does change a lot", observes Karina.
If the transportation opportunities decrease and the office capacities decrease, we have to adapt and re-invent new models.
We will likely see retail real estate made available in the coming future. And coworking space could take over.

#10 You save more space by taking away tables than by asking people to leave empty seats - Kinnarps

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