BCO Dialogues: Insights and conversations on the evolving workplace landscape.

Throughout 2024 and 2025 The British Council for Offices are holding a series of select round table events across the UK. These events provide a diverse forum for a collective of built environment professionals to share best practice as well as their lived and applied experiences related to pre-selected, pertinent themes relevant to the BCO membership.These are the BCO Dialogues. 

The thrust behind these Dialogues is to share some of the BCO’s topical and current research in a timely and streamlined fashion. The second in the series of BCO Dialogues was held in late November 2024 in Birmingham, building upon the hugely successful BCO Conference that visited Birmingham in May of the same year.

Kris Krokosz, Director at Squaredot, organised and chaired one of the well attended BCO conferences plenary sessions back in May which focused on The Impact of Technology and the Creative Sector on Future Workplace. The panel comprised of notable industry leaders Tim Sparks; Google, Tim Oldman; Leesman, Leah Jones; GPA, James Watts; Arup and Alexandra King; BCU. Each had unique viewpoints and experiences to bring to the table. The group spent 90 minutes in front of the assembled BCO delegate audience discussing their own lived experiences and thoughts on the subject matter, prompted and challenged by Kris over the duration of the session.

The success of this session and the Birmingham BCO conference as a whole set the scene for the BCO Dialogue to hold its second gathering at Goldman Sachs, Paradise, Birmingham. Peter Grant, who has spear-headed the BCO Dialogue series nationally, assembled a range of cross-sector professionals alongside Kris Krokosz. 12 delegates were selected along with a mediator and generous host. In order to make the discussions as informative and relevant as possible, key themes and questions were defined over a series of working sessions ahead of the Dialogue itself and circulated to attendees, in order to elicit thoughtful, considered and sometimes challenging responses.

The Dialogue and round table discussions were split into two key sessions. Session 1 focused on the themes of Demand and Occupational Issues, while Session 2 delved into Supply, Specification and Design. With representation around the table from Developers, Occupiers, Project Management, Cost Consultancy, Architecture, Design Consultants, Office Agency and Building Services, voiced opinions provided wide-ranging yet holistically thematic views on the built environment as around 6 questions were tackled per session. This gave both a granular level of insight specific to discipline but also importantly picked up on the macro themes currently running through our collective industry.

In our next article we’ll dive into some of this detail further, as we introduce the thrust of the questions, the delegates thoughts and experiences, as well as the BCO Dialogue outcomes.

For further reading on our BCO Plenary Sessions and Tours at the 2024 Annual BCO Conference, read our news article: “A packed agenda of BCO conference 2024 activities over three days in Birmingham