Mark Dixon is the founder & CEO of International Workplace Group (IWG), formerly known as Regus, the world’s largest provider of flexible workspace solutions. They have over 3,300 locations and 15,000 team members in 120 countries around the world. Mark has a unique and diverse background leading up to his current role. He actually dropped out of school at the age of 16 to start a business delivering sandwiches by bicycle. He has been a logger, a miner, a barman, an investor, and a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman--all before founding IWG in 1989. He always knew he wanted to go into business, but he also realized early on that he needed experience and training and that’s definitely what he got throughout every job he had. He learned other languages, he tried multiple different roles, he soaked up what he could from the people he worked with--and all of it led him to his current position. As Mark shares, “I've worked with some fantastic people, either within the companies or advisors or people I know. And, you know, in those days--and still today--I'm still learning today, you’re sort of like a sponge. You just got to be whoever you're speaking to, whatever you're doing, you try, you know, you're learning lessons. And COVID, you know, this whole crisis, I've been through many, many crises over the period of time that I've been in business, this is a huge one. And you've had to reinvent very quickly, and sort of apply, you know, all those 45 years of experiences to what you know now. And it's very hard to learn all that, you know, you're not going to get a lot of it with an MBA, it's gonna come with experience.” Is there still a place for in-person work? This past year with the pandemic really showed most businesses that they could continue to get things done even during shutdowns, thanks to technology. They realized that not only could the business keep going, but a lot of employees were happier because they weren’t commuting every day, they could work in comfortable clothing, and they could spend more time with family. Now that we’ve all experienced this for over a year, a lot of companies are exploring how they can allow employees to have more flexible work options. A big topic of conversation lately is will the office go away completely. Will most companies continue with remote only working? Mark and I agree that while companies will give employees more flexibility, the office is not going away anytime soon and there is still value in having people come to work in-person. But most likely it will be more of a hybrid format, where people can work from home at times and come into the office at times as well. While it is possible to keep everyone remote and get work done, as Mark points out bringing people together, at least some of the time is key, otherwise you just create a bunch of digital nomads. This can be dangerous because it makes it easy to lose the company culture. The key is having a convenient physical office (or offices) that people want to come to, at least from time to time. This is where collaboration, social interactions, networking, etc… can happen. It is also important to have an agenda to accomplish while people are there so you don’t have people sitting around staring at their screen by themselves. “You're going in there to do creative stuff, you're going in there for your boss to thank you and hand you a, you know, a bottle of wine or something for doing a great job in front of everyone else. So you can't do that over the internet. So you've got to try and have a sense of belonging, and a feeling of purpose. And you can do a lot of it when people are decentralized, but you can't do all of it. It's a really important factor. So the companies of the future will have a number of hubs around the country, they'll bring people together.” The benefits of hybrid work Hybrid work is about making work convenient for employees and allowing them to work from wherever is the most productive for them each day. Some pe