WeWork’s Potential Bankruptcy: What You Should Consider

In the past few weeks, I’ve spoken with dozens of WeWork tenants, All Access members, and partners, most of them real estate and workplace leaders.

The mood is not optimistic. While we don’t know the outcome, the uncertainty created for those managing employee workspaces makes for more work and worries.

If your employees currently use WeWork offices across any of their options: on-demand, enterprise all-access, or leased tenant spaces, we’ve put together a list of what you might need to prepare for should the company go into bankruptcy.

Take Stock of Potential Impact

First, you need to know how broad the impact could be on your company. These impacts could be spread across a few categories: People, Finances, and Contracts.

People

Getting specific on who could be impacted and how or when you’ll need to communicate with them about any impact on their workspace. Even if the update is good news: no impact, they will want to hear it from you. And if you need to communicate with them quickly, you’ll be glad you know who they are ahead of time.

Prep Work

• How many of your employees are using WeWork?
• Do these employees all work out of a single location, have all-access passes, or a mix of both?
• Is the impact limited to a handful of employees you can work with 1:1, or will this impact multiple locations and a large number of employees?
• Do you have a way to email this group of employees or a place they expect information to come from?
• Does your communication need to be segmented by employee type, location, or 1:1?

Finance

Now is the time to bring in the legal team to review the contracts, your outlay, and your exposure. Depending on your exposure, you may need to scenario plan for various contingencies.

Prep Work

• What do you pre-pay per month? If access shuts off mid-month, what can you provide financially to continue offering employees workspaces?
• When does your contract end, and how much notice do you have to give?
• What is guaranteed, and what does WeWork have the option to change regarding access or location?
• Do you have money held by WeWork? What is your plan for getting that back, and how will you approach it? If, in a bankruptcy scenario, this money cannot be returned, how does that impact budgets for the remainder of the year?

Next Steps

We’ve identified speed, cost, security, and employee collaboration as the top priorities as workplace leaders employ stop-gap solutions and look to understand the longer impact.

If there is one silver lining, it is that this can be a moment to identify where you need more insights and analytics to understand the impact of your existing workplace strategy and what you need to optimize for in the future.

Prep Work

• What metrics and insights will you need to understand the impact of this on your company, and what would you like to track moving forward?
• What budget and controls will you need to allow employees to access workspaces near them?
• How will you sync this quickly across your HRIS and employee base?

Be proactive about getting these answers (and more) so you can jump ahead of the curve and protect the interests of your company, employees, and team.

Flex space providers to try instead of WeWork

Luckily, WeWork is far from the only viable coworking provider out there. Depending on your team size, location, and amenity preferences, there are plenty of great options to choose from, and the best thing? They’re all on Gable, so you can find and book them in one place.

Here are some of our favorite partners:

• Mindspace: Spaces in San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, London, Berlin, Warsaw, and Munich
• Studio by Tishman Speyer: Locations in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Washington D.C., and Chicago
• The Malin, with three New York spaces: West Village, Soho, and Williamsburg
• Bond Collective: Locations in New York, Austin, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia
• Premier Workspaces, with meeting rooms across the U.S.: Los Angeles, New York, Charlotte, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, Honolulu, Miami, and Seattle
• Venture X: Spaces in Dallas, Oakbrook Terrace, Atlanta, and Charlotte

Find more alternatives to WeWork by browsing our entire workspace offering!

Need to take action ASAP?

If you’re trying to understand what options are available to you, our team will put together an analysis of your employee coverage, cost impact, and operationalize impact.

Talk to us to learn more about how we might be able to help make sure you don’t miss a beat, even in a situation out of your control.

Cover photo: Marco Verch,

License: Creative Commons 2.0