Arlyn Vogelmann
Throughout its 123-year history, General Electric (GE) has been a vanguard American company, celebrated for its capacity to anticipate industrial trends and produce significant innovations. Now, this titan of industry is serving as a bellwether of contemporary work culture by embracing a trend that’s quietly existed on the horizon for quite some time: the desire of American corporations to reclaim the urban cores they once fled.
GE recently announced plans to move its corporate headquarters from a 60 acre campus in Fairfield, Connecticut, to the South Boston Waterfront neighborhood. The decision to opt into the grit of an urban Boston neighborhood has left industry insiders scratching their heads.
Andrew Starr
The truth is GE’s move perfectly syncs with the trend of the American worker returning to the urban landscape, and it supports the company’s ongoing strategy to evolve into a tech powerhouse. American corporations have begun to recognize the tangible and intangible benefits revitalized urban environments offer, and GE’s relocation to a Boston waterfront district marks a turning point in the progression towards more urban workplaces.
The number one benefit a company like GE can reap from locating its headquarters in a major city is easy access to talent, the most coveted product in our global economy. Big and small companies alike are engaged in a constant war for talent; talent that can enable innovation within digital spheres and secure a competitive advantage over nimble startups and burgeoning international firms. To continue its dramatic transformation into a tech company, GE must secure the brightest minds it can find.
That talent tends to cluster in urban areas. Countless studies have shown that digitally-savvy workers want to work and live in cities. Suburban campuses accessible only by automobiles may have been all the rage with Baby Boomers and early Gen Xers, but Millennials have made it clear they do not want to follow in their parents’ footprint. This is the group of workers who will create the next wave of disruptive technologies.
Cities appeal to Millennials by offering the mix of amenities you can’t find anywhere else. They provide better access to mass transit, a plus for a generation that has chosen to renounce car ownership in favor of walkable neighborhoods, public transportation and the sharing economy. They are mixed-use environments by default, replete with rich cultural amenities and lifestyles. Cities offer authentic urban fabrics where change and creativity are integral facets of everyday life. That’s particularly important to a generation of Americans for whom personal authenticity is an indispensable trait. The inherent grit and diversity of urban environments are pluses, too.
Boston’s Changing Identity
Boston is a particularly enticing destination for any company determined to up its tech IQ because it hosts an entire ecosystem of universities, venture capitalists and tech startups. West Coast tech giants such as Google and Microsoft have located here to tap into this ecosystem. This is why Staples opened the Velocity Lab in Kendall Square to fuel innovations for the ecommerce portion of its business, and why Johnson & Johnson established a Boston Innovation Center.
For most of its existence, Boston self-identified as a quaint New England town that happened to exist on a large scale. Now, foreign investment in commercial and high-end residential real estate and the presence of global retailers have imbued the city with a cosmopolitan vibe. The nexus of next-level talent, a global culture and the proximity of so many creative entities has transformed Boston into a perfect stew of expertise and resources. The city fosters creative thinking and connects talented individuals to companies who will pay top dollar for their skill-sets.
Companies like GE seek agile workplaces that can accommodate fast-paced and collaborative work styles. These workplaces enable a plug-and-play mode of working that has become a critical driver of workplace design. Unassigned desks, a plethora of collaboration spaces, broader team footprints and layouts that can be easily reconfigured at the drop of a hat support the collaborative real-time teaming model that has replaced the “let’s have a meeting and go back to our individual desks” style of work.
We’ve entered an era of ultra-fast, uber-collaborative work, and urban workplaces must be agile enough to support this paradigm shift. Just as cities encourage creative disruption and nonstop energy, urban workplaces favor agility and streamlined workstyles over hierarchy and staid routines. Cities are the perfect home for tech-savvy companies, because natural urban rhythms and the pace of city life mesh perfectly with how 21st century knowledge workers interact with one another.
Over the past two decades residents have returned to cities and brought with them the businesses and amenities that give urban environments such unparalleled charm and vibrancy. Now, companies are doing the same, reentering modernized neighborhoods and bringing with them a fast-paced work culture in search of the requisite talent. GE is the latest name to choose a city to be its home, and given the company’s reputation as a herald of what’s to come, expect more companies to follow suit. n
Arlyn Vogelmann is a principal at Gensler, a global architecture and design firm, where she advises major corporations on the evolving role of the work environment. She may be reached at Arlyn_Vogelmann@Gensler.com. Andrew Starr is a real estate strategist and site selection expert at Gensler. He may be reached at Andrew_Starr@Gensler.com.
