TechTown’s chief operating officer pens an opinion piece on engaging and supporting your staff at the office
Folks from Energy Storage Safety Products International and the U.S. Department of Transportation chat with members of TechTown’s Collaborative Workspace and Facilities (CWF) team during a tour of the TechTown building. Our CWF team ensures all of our members and tenants are happy, as well as provides tours of the building and ensures our coworking space, meeting rooms and events run smoothy. Photograph by J. Lindsey Photography
Recent coverage of an office furniture manufacturer convention suggested that the return-to-work playbook calls for three things: integrating technology, embracing flexibility and creating privacy within communal spaces.
That’s on trend with other articles featuring return-to-work tips and strategies. Most include some kind of furniture or technology upgrade. Almost all of them emphasize the need to make the office version of work as desirable as the home version.
But it’s not about amenities. It’s about community.
Not your traditional office setup
Mayté Penman, TechTown’s bicultural business strategist, at the grand opening of TechTown’s team member suite in May. The team member suite underwent a major remodel to become a vibrant, open-concept workspace. Photograph by Kopalli Media
Office work has always been a combination of executing tasks and existing in a community. The traditional office setup ensured a certain amount of guaranteed community. You had to share physical space with people. You had to understand social norms. And you had to navigate the good days, bad days and birthdays of any number of coworkers. The difference in a post-pandemic era of work is that the community is no longer automatic.
At TechTown, that’s the foundation of the return-to-work strategy that has served us best: leaning into community.
We’re fortunate to have a robust community built into our business model. Fostering a welcoming and productive environment for our 800+ members and tenants is as much a focus for us as delivering best-in-class services to tech founders and small business owners.
Making your trip to TechTown worth it
Don Dudley (left), co-founder of Clean Sneaker Care and 2023 Comerica Hatch Detroit Contest semifinalist, speaks with an attendee of the 2023 Comerica Hatch Detroit Contest Top 10 Reveal in April. During this event, the top 10 semifinalists of the Contest were announced, and attendees could learn about and sample goods from the semifinalists’ businesses. Photograph by J. Lindsey Photography
TechTown has long been known as a place that guarantees “serendipitous collisions” — kind of like what you’d get if a business conference, a reunion and a block party were all rolled into one place. And that concept of recognizing the value in running into someone unexpectedly (or on purpose) applies to our staff in the same way that it does our building community.
On any given day, coming into the office could land you in an impromptu conversation with a group of international fellows from Global Ties Detroit or have you bumping into a senior official from the Small Business Administration on your way to the restroom. Our staff knows the value of connecting with our clients, members, and tenants, and physically being in our office provides those connections on demand.
When our Small Business Services department is hosting The SHOP — a monthly pop-up shopping experience featuring TechTown retail clients — other departments mark their calendars for a day at the office. They know that they’ll be able to cheer on colleagues, meet some clients, grab lunch from an onsite vendor, and squeeze in a few meetings, all in one place at TechTown. There’s no question of whether the trip to the office will be worth it because we’ve designed certain aspects of our work to lean hard into building a sense of community.
When we’re hosting a building happy hour, we’ll often schedule it to pair with an onsite or hybrid meeting. Team members show up for the meeting and stick around because they know they’ll get to mingle with our board members (who sponsor the happy hours), learn more about the tenants in our labs or try a tasty treat from a client’s business (take, for example, boozy ice cream from Ice Cream Detroit). It will feel like a full and productive day.
“I’m so glad I came today”
Erica Overstreet (middle), TechTown’s membership manager, and Andrea Pitcher, community ambassador manager, sit at TechTown’s front desk. These two women are often the first two smiling faces you see as you enter the building. Photograph by Kopalli Media
The funny thing about curating a handful of high-ROI days per month is that it perpetuates an important key takeaway among staff: “I’m so glad I came in today.” It’s amazing how that can domino into people choosing to spend several more days in person and doing their own individual curation to make sure their time is well-spent.
At TechTown, we’re not worried about the number of days per week someone comes into the office. We trust that our staff is drawn to the thriving community that’s here and will engage with it in person as often as it supports them and their work.
And yes, we’ve made some improvements to our office furniture and tech along the way —including converting an office of staff cubicles into a collaborative, open-concept space. But instead of spending our time in search of the perfect conference table for hybrid meetings or guessing what the right number of required in-person days is, we’re focused on making TechTown a meaningful place where people connect with each other.
And the best part is, you don’t have to be on staff to be part of it.
Interested in learning more about our coworking community? Take a look at our work and event spaces and find the right one for your working needs!
Kelly Kozlowski is the chief operating officer at TechTown Detroit and assistant vice president of Economic Development at Wayne State University.
