Conversation with Peter Miscovich, JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle)

Matt sits down with Peter Miscovich, Global Future of Work Leader and Executive Managing Director at JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle).

Peter has advised Fortune 100 companies on optimizing over 1.5 billion square feet of real estate and co-authored The Workplace You Need Now. He serves on advisory boards for Accenture, the Brookings Institution, the Urban Land Institute, and the Saris Presence Advisory Board, with academic ties to Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.

Join us as we explore the future of work and workplace transformation.

Connect with us:
www.apexfacility.com

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Transcript

00;00;03;25 - 00;00;32;19

Matt Watson

Welcome to Transcending Workspace, where we talk with leaders of organizations managing the greatest rate of change in human history. I'm Matt Watson, VP of development with Apex Facility Resources, an integrated services company that delivers and manages workspace change for clients of all sizes. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. Today's guest is Peter Miscovich, who is a global Future of work leader and executive managing director based in New York, New York.

00;00;32;21 - 00;01;00;23

Matt Watson

Renowned for his expertise in integrating emerging technologies, talent strategies and workplace transformation, Peter has advised fortune 100 clients on optimizing over one point 5,000,000,000ft² of corporate real estate, including developing more than 50 corporate headquarters. He is co-author of The Workplace You Need Now and serves on multiple advisory boards, including the Accenture Technology Vision Board and the Saris Presence Advisory Board.

00;01;00;26 - 00;01;19;09

Matt Watson

Peter is also a trusted advisor to institutions such as the Brookings Institution, CoreNet global, and the Urban Land Institute, and the Global Economic Forum. His academic affiliations include Columbia University, Harvard University, MIT, NYU, and Stanford University. Welcome, Peter.

00;01;19;14 - 00;01;21;10

Peter Miscovich

It's a pleasure to be with you, Matt. Thank you.

00;01;21;11 - 00;01;41;29

Matt Watson

Peter, I have met over 15 years ago. Just a little background. I belong to a commercial relocation network group, and Peter was our keynote speaker 15 years ago, and we've had Peter back every five years to be our keynote. And what's interesting about our track record with Peter is he's made predictions that have come true every time.

00;01;42;01 - 00;01;53;05

Peter Miscovich

Thank you. It's not always the case, but so far, so good. My timing in terms of time duration, sometimes a little off, but most of the predictions have come true over time, so thank you.

00;01;53;08 - 00;02;09;13

Matt Watson

Well, I know you have. I mean, just going through your background a little bit. You have more than 34 years in the industry and you have a civil engineering degree. I think you came out of college with. So you have a very interesting background, but tell us a little bit of how you started and a little bit about your journey.

00;02;09;16 - 00;02;40;25

Peter Miscovich

Well, Matt began my journey and workplace and real estate over 30 years ago, and I became CEO of a large real estate workplace design firm that did quite a bit of advisory work for a fortune 100 fortune 500 clients. And following that, I could see this is in the 90s with the advent of the internet. But the world of work was changing dramatically, and I then went into the management consulting realm at Accenture, then PricewaterhouseCoopers, and then I was recruited to JLL.

00;02;40;25 - 00;03;09;17

Peter Miscovich

We're a $23 billion real estate investment and advisory firm, and I've been here for over, you know, 17 years now. So my journey is sort of interesting starting with engineering to design to management consulting. And now my role at JLL is really to advise our largest clients to help them solve complex workplace and real estate challenges. And I will say that today I am busier than ever, more challenged than ever.

00;03;09;20 - 00;03;13;01

Peter Miscovich

And it's just a fascinating time in terms of the world of work.

00;03;13;03 - 00;03;36;14

Matt Watson

Yeah. And you and I, we kick it around a little bit when you come in for your keynote every year that you have come. And I think the one thing we agree with is that the rate of change and this, this is the premise of our podcast, is discussing the rate of change and the impact on workplace and workspace and how that's interacting, how you lead the future of work transformation at JLL.

00;03;36;17 - 00;03;40;08

Matt Watson

Tell us a little bit about that work and your team, if you could.

00;03;40;10 - 00;04;08;29

Peter Miscovich

Yes, at  JLL, overall, we have close to 120,000 employees. Our global consulting team is about 400 folks. And the team that I am involved in and lead, we really focus on what we call occupier clients. So our major, you know, again fortune 100 and fortune 500 clients that occupy large portfolios of corporate real estate. And for those clients, we help them redesign their corporate real estate organizations.

00;04;09;01 - 00;04;45;12

Peter Miscovich

We help them with hybrid and various workplace transformation strategies. We help them with portfolio transformation and consolidation at scale. So global location strategies. We also partner closely with our JLL technologies team in terms of technology integration, including AI, which I'm glad to share some thoughts on. And then we have a number of folks, leaders, including myself, who focused on change management to help large scale and medium smaller scale companies deal with all of the discontinuous, continuous, disruptive workplace change that we've seen here.

00;04;45;12 - 00;04;50;16

Peter Miscovich

Pre-pandemic, certainly during the pandemic and post-pandemic. Now, in 2025.

00;04;50;19 - 00;05;07;27

Matt Watson

We could go down so many rabbit holes here. But just a real quick question. Your team, how large is your team? And tell me a little bit, I'm just curious about the demographics of your team. I mean, you and I are about the same age. We're young boomers. I'm very curious as to who you work with and kind of how that impacts the work you do.

00;05;08;00 - 00;05;32;26

Peter Miscovich

Yeah. The team demographics. There are a number of senior consulting advisory lead such as myself. And then we have a whole host of folks that are in the, you know, strong millennial demographic. And then I have a Super Gen Z teams. It's me and the 25 year olds, and we do some amazing work relative to future work workplace transformation, gen AI enablement.

00;05;32;29 - 00;05;47;19

Peter Miscovich

And so it's a pretty broad cross-section. And as JLL, you know, we're located situated over 80 countries. So we have a good span of capabilities from the Americas to EMEA to Asia Pacific and actually in Greater China.

00;05;47;25 - 00;06;14;20

Matt Watson

You know, and I have three kids, one millennial and two Gen Z's, one non-binary. So I play with the full flavor over here of interesting conversations. And the inputs I get from that is very interesting. And and what I find is my son, who's the youngest, he's 24. And the irony of him is that he is more like his grandfather than he is like anybody else.

00;06;14;22 - 00;06;34;03

Matt Watson

And his behavior and his his workplace philosophy and workspace philosophy and coworker philosophy is like my dad and I. Are you finding that Gen Z's have a really interesting, I don't know, outlook, and it's not what you perceive like a millennial outlook. It's different.

00;06;34;06 - 00;07;04;21

Peter Miscovich

Yeah, Gen Z is very interesting. And I also have I have nine godchildren and they range in age from 15 to 32. And so I also have a lot of engagement personally and professionally with Gen Z, and certainly with millennials and Gen Z's are very wise in some ways. I find it's a great article in Fast Company about Gen Z and the so-called quiet quitting, and the basic premise of the articles that Gen Z isn't really quietly quitting.

00;07;04;23 - 00;07;26;16

Peter Miscovich

They just don't tolerate bad leaders and bad leadership and poor leadership. And so the two things I think, that are meaningful for Gen Z and actually for any generation one is purpose and meaning in the work you do. Yeah. And to be given and shown good leadership. And so to me, purpose meaning leadership, Matt, are key, you know, enablers of the work we do.

00;07;26;16 - 00;07;42;16

Peter Miscovich

And we're seeing a lot of challenges with client organizations trying to help their workforce find greater meaning, purpose and to also provide leadership. Just given the tremendous rates of change and all of the various challenges that we're all experiencing at scale.

00;07;42;19 - 00;08;12;08

Matt Watson

That's great. Yeah. And I was going to ask you how those larger clients are navigating the challenges of remote work and hybrid workplace. I know here in Seattle, Amazon has put the hammer down and said, you're in for five days a week. People gain that. I would suggest to you that we have had a really dramatic shift started in downtown Seattle, where it seems to be improving, but we had a real problem with drugs and homelessness and and mental illness and whatnot on our streets.

00;08;12;08 - 00;08;33;22

Matt Watson

And it was amplified during Covid because nobody was there. And it was really brutal for a long time. I know there are different heavy personalities out there around even our president and so forth around working in the office versus working remotely. What is your overall view and what what do you know? It's a it's a it's a battle.

00;08;33;23 - 00;08;37;18

Matt Watson

You know, at every time, every time we take a turn, 

00;08;37;20 - 00;09;04;22

Peter Miscovich

Well, it's complex. I'll share with you, Matt. My family also goes back to Seattle over 100 years. I was born in Seattle, so I know Seattle well. And the Pacific Northwest actually. My family also originates from Croatia and Alaska. And Seattle has always been very important to our family and family history. So I have a sense of the complexities of Seattle looking at San Francisco, Seattle, West Coast cities and Midwestern cities, East coast cities.

00;09;04;24 - 00;09;39;18

Peter Miscovich

And I think if I really think about all the work I've done, like one point 5,000,000,000ft² of workplace transformation, most of that has been in four day and five day office occupancy over 30 years. Now, I piloted hybrid work in the 90s with clients such as Accenture, AT&T, IBM, Citibank, PwC, and, you know, in the 90s it was seen as highly alternative and very shall we say, unique and alternative in a way that it wasn't taken very seriously.

00;09;39;21 - 00;10;05;17

Peter Miscovich

And then if we fast forward 20 years, certainly, and we think about mobility, the iPhone, social networks, 4G, 5G, wireless and then the pandemic, the pandemic was like this tremendous catalyst and accelerant that took us forward like 5 to 10 years, and we weren't really prepared for the pandemic. So now we're in 2025, we have all of these technologies, we have all of this distributed work.

00;10;05;19 - 00;10;37;26

Peter Miscovich

We have leaders who are struggling with workplace complexity and workforce complexity. And so one of the reasons I'm busy we're busy is JLL clients need a lot of help navigating. The good question that you just asked. Yeah. Because there's no one size fits all solution. And, you know, I've lived through four hybrid winters, if you will, Matt, where, you know, in the in the mid-2012-14 time frame, telework, remote work, hybrid work was also seen as very unacceptable.

00;10;37;26 - 00;11;09;07

Peter Miscovich

And there was great pushback then. And so here we are ten years later, we're seeing similar pushback. We're going into another hybrid winter and that may sustain for a period of time. But over time the future of work will be dynamic. It will be distributed, it will be diverse, and it will be technology enabled. And those leaders who get that and who look at talent and people and how to help their people do their best work, they will align what we believe to those leading practices over time.

00;11;09;09 - 00;11;41;08

Peter Miscovich

But you've got to meet everyone where they are. And people and organizations and leaders are different places in the journey. And to your earlier comment about Gen Z or other generational issues, there's folks within those cohorts that really, you know, need to be in the office or with a community of folks on a more regular basis. And so how do we create this, if you will, personalized and human centric approach to meet all the generational needs and individual needs as to meeting people where they are, to really help them fulfill their potential.

00;11;41;09 - 00;11;57;26

Matt Watson

I couldn't agree with you more. And I think that's really what's interesting to me is that it seems to be almost a little backward. Those who are really technically enabled, like my kids who show me stuff on my phone, you know, kind of help me figure stuff out with the television set when they can't work it, you know, stuff like that.

00;11;57;29 - 00;12;20;29

Matt Watson

They're more focused on being in the office and people like me, I live 80 miles outside of Seattle on a little ranch. I have a business in Seattle. I have a business here where we where we live, and we have a great team who run our business. And whenever I do go in, which is once or twice a month, I see 3 or 4 people in the office and we have no real strict policy.

00;12;21;01 - 00;12;43;15

Matt Watson

But what I have found is it it is interesting on who really you would think would be thriving in the I guess the distributed work platform is really not so much wanting that they want to have an engagement and they need engagement. As you and I both probably came up through the same process, as we learned by listening to the phone calls of the guy next to us.

00;12;43;16 - 00;12;57;28

Matt Watson

You know, the person who's managing the objection or the overcoming the obstacle. And you've heard a lot of those conversations, I'm sure, in the office and learn from that. So it's blending those two things together, which I find very interesting and very a very big challenge right now.

00;12;58;00 - 00;13;20;23

Peter Miscovich

But I think your observations are very correct. And over time, that blending is hopefully going to get easier and easier through the orchestration of technologies such as Microsoft Places. Yeah, the ability for you and or your colleagues or your Gen Z sons, daughters, kids can have a peak experience, and that peak experience can be 4 or 5 days a week.

00;13;20;23 - 00;13;41;27

Peter Miscovich

It could be seven days a week if you wish. It could be 3 or 4 days a month. But the ability to enable that peak experience. So you really feel that the time in a space, in a workspace, in an office is really worthwhile. It's contributing to, again, the meaning, purpose and value of your professional and perhaps even your personal life.

00;13;42;01 - 00;14;06;05

Matt Watson

The other challenge that we have here, as you probably already know, is we have a real housing shortage in Seattle due to a number of reasons. We won't go down those rabbit holes, but the commitment of the commute to get to and from work in Seattle and there are other markets like us, is a huge deterrent for people to even want to come to work and then to make it worth that effort that they make maybe an hour or two.

00;14;06;06 - 00;14;16;06

Matt Watson

I have people who live in Tacoma, and when I drive from 80 miles away down I-90, I get to work quicker than they do from 30 miles away. So.

00;14;16;09 - 00;14;43;13

Peter Miscovich

So I have clients and I won't name them, but are several cohorts of their workforce and they come in three days, four days a week, but their hours are staggered, so some will start their day at 10 or 11 a.m., leave by two. Others come in very, very early at 6 a.m., leave by one. I have one R&D workforce client.

00;14;43;15 - 00;14;57;01

Peter Miscovich

All the R&D folks come in every morning from 7 to 12. They do all their work together five days a week, and then they go home and have lunch with their families and then have personal time and then heads down time in their afternoons.

00;14;57;03 - 00;14;58;14

Matt Watson

So I think so much sense.

00;14;58;16 - 00;15;14;01

Peter Miscovich

There's, you know, there's there's a lot of room for variability. I mean, we were raised, Matt, I remember when it was five days a week, eight in New York, 8 to 8 often, you know, wearing a blue shirt in certain organizations was considered radical.

00;15;14;03 - 00;15;14;08

Peter Miscovich

In my.

00;15;14;08 - 00;15;33;16

Peter Miscovich

First set of blue shirts versus white shirts come a long way, and I try to look at all of the workplace transformation, you know, history in a historical perspective. If we look back 30 years, 60 years, and we've come a long way, we have still a long way to go to make it all work effectively.

00;15;33;18 - 00;15;50;06

Matt Watson

Yeah, I have a good friend who I fish with is his name is Ring. You won't mind me mentioning his name. He's an HR specialist and an operations specialist at a large technology company, has a huge track record out of growing teams in Seattle. But he started out. I think, at Safeco Insurance and he got in trouble for his socks.

00;15;50;06 - 00;15;55;20

Matt Watson

He had fancy Nordstrom socks. He got called into HR over his socks.

00;15;55;23 - 00;16;15;01

Peter Miscovich

So so we've come a long way. But I think we have a ways to go. And I think it'll be fascinating to see in the next five years. Where are we with all of the advancements in technology. And we're facing some demographic challenges in terms of talent and recruitment, and again, enabling people to do their best work.

00;16;15;04 - 00;16;39;08

Matt Watson

Now, with all these challenges we've brought to the table and discussed, there is opportunity. And let's talk about utilization and right now, currently, occupancy through the ten cities through the Castle Weekly occupancy report is 54.2%. However, that occupancy usually is more like a 63% on a Tuesday and a 37% on a Monday and on a Friday in Seattle.

00;16;39;10 - 00;17;01;23

Matt Watson

That's still the truth. We have nearly 30% vacancy in Seattle. In my 40 years of working in this market, I've never seen anything over 20. In fact, 18 or 19% was the worst it ever got nationally, we're at a 20.4% vacancy rate. I know you advise on workplace and that has a huge I mean, that's the second largest cost to people.

00;17;01;26 - 00;17;18;02

Matt Watson

So you have a really interesting on JLL has a really interesting opportunity to advise clients on utilization. And how do you see that? Do you see it continuing like class B buildings kind of going away? Do you see people kind of do you see just like the 20% sticking? Do you see any changes there?

00;17;18;04 - 00;17;43;20

Peter Miscovich

Well it's fascinating. 2025 nationally, we're seeing greater occupancy, greater return to office. And in our recent Future of Work report, which is on our website, we show that there are office advocates that are increasing in their occupancy 4 to 5 days a week. And then we have hybrid adoption that's still significant at probably 45 to to 50%. That'll being said, I'll use New York where I'm based.

00;17;43;20 - 00;18;10;07

Peter Miscovich

We have class A buildings in New York that have 2% vacancy and the highest rental rates of anywhere in the nation, and maybe even the world now. And so those buildings are offering peak experiences, great amenities, great location for transit, great technology infrastructure. And they are attracting firms who want their people to come to a high-quality work environment.

00;18;10;10 - 00;18;27;12

Peter Miscovich

And that can be two days a week, three days a week, five days a week, seven days a week. And so I think, Matt, what we're going to see in real estate and I've seen this, I use downtown Manhattan as an example. I was here for 911. I helped ten of our clients post 911. It's a very, very challenging time.

00;18;27;15 - 00;19;02;04

Peter Miscovich

Post 911. In 2001, 2002, there were forecasts that no one would ever live or work downtown again. Now, fast forward a number of years, 20 plus years, over 30,000,000ft² in lower Manhattan has been transformed. And it's a vibrant office, vibrant residential, vibrant retail, vibrant, mixed use community in Lower Manhattan. But it took over 20 plus years for that to occur.

00;19;02;06 - 00;19;35;12

Peter Miscovich

So the question remains whether it's Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, LA. I mean, what is the opportunity to mitigate obsolescence of especially the class B minus C building infrastructure? I have one client that has these large campuses and very sort of remote areas, not exurban areas. And they're ideal for senior living facilities because they're three-story with wide hallways with great elevators and wide escalators, and they're not being converted back to office.

00;19;35;12 - 00;19;58;08

Peter Miscovich

They're being converted to senior living. Yeah. Community environments. And so this is this is where I think we need to look at some creativity. And we need to look at real estate in a new lens as we move forward. And to understand, you know, where there are opportunities to reposition some of those assets that may be obsolete. And again, to rethink the entire real estate equation.

00;19;58;10 - 00;20;28;16

Matt Watson

Couldn't agree more. And I thought another interesting or kind of an ironic thing was that suburban class buildings were generally not doing well before the pandemic. And then now they seem to be actually outperforming CBD central business district in our, at least in our market. And I think West Coast markets, that's what's happening. And I think it's partly because of this commute factor, because I know I've done offices in San Francisco and I've seen the 10 to 2 attendee. Yeah, I mean, they avoid the traffic both ways and it's traffic 100% of the time.

00;20;28;16 - 00;20;48;17

Matt Watson

It's it's horrible. So I, I, I just wonder I love the idea of senior living. Guess what? You and I are at the tail end of the largest demographic group in the history of our country and probably the world, given the number of us. And we're going to need more senior living for sure. Let's shift gears a little bit.

00;20;48;17 - 00;21;03;09

Matt Watson

You've had a fascinating conversation the last time you're in doing your keynote, you talked about the fifth Industrial revolution. Go through that a little bit with me and how it will play out. I'll just let's talk about a little bit how it'll play out the fifth industrial revolution as you see it.

00;21;03;11 - 00;21;29;00

Peter Miscovich

Yeah. Thank you. Well, just as a bit of a historical perspective, you know, the first, second, third revolutions involved electrification, the steam engine. And then we saw the early tech revolutions in the latter part of the third and the fourth. And we really are at the tail end of the fourth Industrial Revolution, per the World Economic Forum, which really was the launch of everything related to advanced technologies in the 2000s.

00;21;29;00 - 00;21;55;22

Peter Miscovich

And now as we go towards 2030, we're beginning to look at the fifth Industrial Revolution, which will really be technology for good. And there's a huge shift occurring that where for the last 70 years, we as humans had to adapt to technology. It's been clunky, it's been challenging. It's been awkward. It's been expensive, and it's really created a lot of conflict for us.

00;21;55;25 - 00;22;22;15

Peter Miscovich

In the fifth industrial revolution, technology will adapt to humans, and we're starting to see this with AI, where your digital twin and my digital twin could meet, could have a discussion, record that discussion, bring back that discussion to us as humans, and we could absorb that discussion, and that could all be done seamlessly without any involvement or activation on your part or my part.

00;22;22;17 - 00;22;48;19

Peter Miscovich

And that technology is here today. And so the fifth Industrial Revolution will be this new age of technology adaptation to humans. And this is from our work with Accenture and the Accenture Labs and Accenture research teams. And it's a very exciting time. It also has some risks. But, AI enabled robotics, the next generation of digital twin, the next generation of immersive spatial computing.

00;22;48;22 - 00;23;03;02

Peter Miscovich

It's going to create whole new windows on how we work, how we live, how we entertain, how we educate, how we shop, how we manage our day to day lives. So this fifth industrial revolution, we're just embarking upon the whole AI accelerant is certainly part of that.

00;23;03;06 - 00;23;12;14

Matt Watson

Well, I tell you, and my biggest complaint as a 61 year old has been it should be more intuitive. Why is it so frickin hard for me to know? This is the button I need to push.

00;23;12;16 - 00;23;13;09

Peter Miscovich

Right?

00;23;13;11 - 00;23;23;04

Matt Watson

And you know, my head is exploding with excitement as far as having technology adapt to me and to say, oh, he doesn't. He doesn't get that. That's the button to push.

00;23;23;06 - 00;23;42;28

Peter Miscovich

Or or or to have energetic AI digital twin of Matt. Oh God, that would be there to help you seamlessly every, you know, working minute to ensure that you're fully enabled and you not having to think and adapt. We go through so much trial and error.

00;23;43;04 - 00;23;43;22

Matt Watson

Yeah.

00;23;43;22 - 00;23;53;26

Peter Miscovich

And so much waste of time. So I think that next evolution is here upon us. And we'll start to see at scale here between 2025 and 2027. Certainly by 2030.

00;23;53;26 - 00;24;00;21

Matt Watson

It's so exciting. And it's also a little scary because a digital twin of myself, I don't even think I like myself that much. 

00;24;00;24 - 00;24;05;05

Peter Miscovich

Oh, you would. You know, your sense of humor. Good guy, smart, nice.

00;24;05;08 - 00;24;08;01

Matt Watson

The good parts of me.

00;24;08;04 - 00;24;11;20

Peter Miscovich

Right. The best version of Matt. Or the best.

00;24;11;26 - 00;24;31;07

Matt Watson

The best, best version of me. I love that I'll be looking forward to meeting that person. Okay. So we're going to ask a couple quick questions. Just close it out here. We were both for fortune 100 as well as the mid-market. We do most of our transaction work in the mid-market. Rough just order of magnitude. What is your,

00;24;31;09 - 00;24;47;06

Matt Watson

I'm a company of 100 or 200 employees. I I'm struggling with hybrid work. I'm struggling with real estate decisions. Rough just out of the blue. Kind of best advice for the mid-market customer, I guess. What? What would your input just kind of on the rough scale.

00;24;47;06 - 00;25;12;15

Peter Miscovich

I would say for the mid-market company today, to look at your business model, to look at your talent, to look at your real estate strategies and workplace strategies, and make sure all of that is being optimized. Yeah. Do I have the right space for the right people at the right time? Yeah. And I advise a number of startups we've invested as JLL and a number of PropTech startups.

00;25;12;15 - 00;25;34;24

Peter Miscovich

I've advised startups. And what's fascinating that I've startups that have very little space, almost no space. And then I have startups, and I know startups that are seven days a week in the office in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, wherever, and both are working effectively. So if you're a mid-sized company, the question is, what is your culture? What do your people want?

00;25;34;24 - 00;25;48;21

Peter Miscovich

Where is your future talent? And then how do you optimize that from a work workforce, workplace and real estate perspective to make it work most successfully for your business model?

00;25;48;23 - 00;26;10;00

Matt Watson

I think that you're right. I think the personality and the work style of your team is so hard for many leaders to understand. I, you know, I go into these projects. I should have been there months ago when they're with their broker looking at real estate because we have to talk through really. What's your work style now? Who is your who's your current employer and who are you trying to attract and retain in the future?

00;26;10;00 - 00;26;36;22

Matt Watson

And I find that about 85% of those deals are me trying to push a square peg through a round hole, simply because those questions weren't really reviewed or right, dealt with. And the hard part is that is not a 15 minute conversation. It's a commitment of time and energy to think about, you know, and I think that's our biggest problem in the mid-market is many of the leaders don't want to spend the time on that.

00;26;36;25 - 00;27;05;20

Peter Miscovich

Well, it's it's a worthy expenditure of time because it can supercharge the business and the financial results. And then the other bit of advice I would give is don't take too much space. Yeah. And don't take too much space at the top of the market at the wrong time that you can't get out of. And so this is another, I would say, strategy around optimization and being very surgical and selective in how space is taken.

00;27;05;20 - 00;27;14;14

Peter Miscovich

And then make sure it's really high performing for your teams. And you know, a little bit of thoughtfulness will go a long way, Matt. Relative to those decisions.

00;27;14;16 - 00;27;39;29

Matt Watson

And with all the sublet on the market that's been furnished very nicely in a modernistic way with, you know, stand up, height adjustable tables and good density and good social areas. I think that, mid-market customers probably have the greatest opportunity today to leverage into short-term sublet leases that would allow them both to grow and thrive and not be committed to a 5 or 10 year lease with a burden.

00;27;39;29 - 00;28;04;01

Peter Miscovich

I would agree. And then there's flex space. You know, co-working spaces and the suburb co-working spaces. Matt, we've seen, you know, an increase in volume and choice and flexibility. So it's an interesting time in terms of midsize companies or startups. You really have a lot more choice today. Yeah. And then with advanced distributed technologies, you can hire people in various parts of the country.

00;28;04;01 - 00;28;17;08

Peter Miscovich

They can still work for your firm. You can fly them in every quarter to meet in person. We're seeing a number of startups and actually larger companies, 5000 person companies have that kind of orchestration that is working really effectively.

00;28;17;11 - 00;28;36;12

Matt Watson

Yeah. And even little guys like us, we've got two employees in the Philippines. So our distributed work folks and these are really high performing employees for us. And I think it's fascinating. And we've just started this a couple of years ago, and we'll probably have more of a distributed platform for just our business. And we're only we're under 50 in terms of total headcount.

00;28;36;12 - 00;28;37;07

Matt Watson

So.

00;28;37;10 - 00;29;01;05

Peter Miscovich

Well, I would add to that, it's a great example. The liquid workforce with yeah, liquid workforce platforms like Upwork is another opportunity where you can take on, you know, workers for periods of time a year, two months, ten hours. And so this type of agile liquid workforce platform capability is another, I think, great opportunity for the mid-market.

00;29;01;10 - 00;29;08;04

Matt Watson

And yet another one of your predictions. And we could do another hour on that one because that one's a fascinating conversation.

00;29;08;04 - 00;29;10;16

Peter Miscovich

It was ten years ago, Matt. You remember.

00;29;10;19 - 00;29;26;08

Matt Watson

Yeah. Yeah, I you brought that up as one of the hey, here's what's going to happen in the future. And you give me like a list of 20 things and that was on it. Something else you said during one of your conversations was, Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, Washington is still the number one metro for digital talent. You still believe that?

00;29;26;11 - 00;30;02;26

Peter Miscovich

It's a really strong market and I think the talent and the profile of talent, and I think the quality of life and quality of work life in your marketplace is still very attractive. And I think with all that's going on with AI and agentic AI and the advancements of AI, the opportunity for the digital talent in your marketplace to reskill and upskill, you know, I'll just say, having a long history with Microsoft and with Amazon and others within your market, I think those are great, you know, amazing talent development companies.

00;30;02;26 - 00;30;11;04

Peter Miscovich

And so the entire region, I think has a very strong talent magnetism capability. And I think that will continue.

00;30;11;07 - 00;30;31;18

Matt Watson

Well, I'm glad to hear it. Now, just closing out a little bit with one of my best quotes from your last conversation is you can't stop the ways, but you can learn to surf. I love that quote because it really talks about overall. The arching thing here is how are we adapting ourselves to the greatest rate of change in human history?

00;30;31;18 - 00;30;39;28

Matt Watson

I mean, a liquid workforce is also very interesting to me. And all those things that you talked about and I like I say, there's like 20 things on the list. I could be here all day with you here.

00;30;40;01 - 00;31;04;23

Peter Miscovich

Well thank you, Matt. I think I'll close with one thought relative to change. And it's the area that we're focused upon a great deal is personal resilience. So how to ensure as individuals we're able to manage through all of the disruption the chaos, the uncertainty and how do you balance yourself? I mean, I you know, I meditate, you know, 30 minutes every morning.

00;31;04;25 - 00;31;34;11

Peter Miscovich

I think self-care self-regulate and ensuring that we're taking good care of ourselves, both personally and professionally. And then to maintain those strong social networks and spiritual connections and friendships and relationships. And how do we nourish ourselves from a resiliency perspective? All these things really matter, especially during these very accelerated, turbulent and often chaotic times. So glad to share more on that topic when we speak.

00;31;34;11 - 00;31;45;03

Matt Watson

Again, thank you so much, Peter. That was fabulous and I appreciate all the time you've shared today, and I do look forward to having you back. You are amazing and we appreciate all the time. Matt.

00;31;45;03 - 00;31;48;04

Peter Miscovich

Thank you so much. Great being with you.

00;31;48;06 - 00;31;59;14

Matt Watson

Thank you for tuning in to Transcending Workspace. If you'd like to hear more, please subscribe to our channel. Visit Apex facility.com for more information about how we can help you build an adaptive workspace.