Resi Founder Alexandra Depledge MBE: Ditching The Office Will Stifle Creativity And Innovation

15 Jan, 2021

Businesses shouldn’t underestimate the office environment’s ability to encourage creativity and innovation, says serial tech entrepreneur and Resi founder Alexandra Depledge MBE.

Businesses risk losing creativity and innovation if they abandon office environments entirely, according to Resi and Hassle.com Founder Alexandra Depledge MBE.

Depedge, a long-term advocate of flexible working, said: “Yes, things have changed and flexible working is more acceptable. However, we lose something when we take people wholly out of the office – that is incidental and anecdotal conversation that spurs creativity and innovation.”

The technology entrepreneur believes a working environment where employees spend two days per week at home and three days in the office provides the optimum mix of productivity and a better balance for working parents and younger people.

In a straight-talking keynote, Depledge also identified hard work and good timing as critical to launching a successful business and warned of the risk of “optimism bias” in which a positive business outcome is retrospectively deemed as inevitable.

Depledge sold household cleaning booking platform Hassle.com for a reported €32 million to German company Helpling in 2015. Launched in 2017, Resi – Depledge’s latest venture – is an online architectural services platform enabling homeowners to take the complexity out of renovating their houses.

Depledge was speaking alongside industry leaders including Sir Martin Sorrell, Patagonia EMEA Marketing Director Alex Weller and Not On The High St CMO Ella D’Amato.

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