2020 in the rear-view mirror: Morning takes stock of the year

Ciao, bye-bye, adios, arrivederci 2020. This crazy hellish year is finally over. Well done everyone, we made it. So, over at Morning, we're taking stock, calmly, looking back on every moment. And in the end, COVID and lockdown aside, a couple of things worth mentioning did happen for us. So we've put together a recap of it all.

New developments by the shovelful

The first new development to note, and not the least of them, is that we changed our brand. We went from Morning Coworking to Morning, because we no longer do just coworking. Bang – the master stroke. So no, we didn't exactly reinvent the wheel with the name, but this new brand brings our various areas of expertise together under a single banner: fit-out, events and coworking. Because Morning today creates spaces  and everything that goes with them so that everyone can have a good working day. And each area of expertise has evolved this year too.

Coworking:

We opened 8 workspaces in 2020. Four coworking spaces: Morning Balard, Boissière, Levallois and Sentier. And four independent offices: Duhesme, where we host Too Good To Go, Bourse, where the agency Australie has settled in, Dussoubs and Ledru-Rollin. Faced with the crisis and new ways of working, we have also adapted our standard offers. We have now brought in a remote-work offer so you can come and work 1, 2 or 3 days a week in our Morning spaces. We have also launched a nomad offer to work from any Morning space, and made available, free of charge, a tool to help companies manage their teams' flex office. And as for COVID, we have of course adapted our spaces.

Fit-out:

Our fit-out teams delivered some really fine projects this year in record time. First to mention is the fit-out of the 1,600m2 of Too Good To Go's offices on rue Duhesme in six weeks. If you can ever find a faster turnaround, do let us know. If you want to see more, we'll let you hear the testimonial from Sarah Chouraqui, Managing Director of Too Good To Go France, below. The team also delivered the offices of the start-up studio La Fabrique by Crédit Agricole in early 2020.

Events:

If one sector took a battering this year, it's events. And yet! At Morning, we adapt and we press on, as Alain Souchon would put it. Masks needed? OK. No more than 10 people? Fine. All of it remotely? No problemo. All our services were adapted to be delivered in line with government guidelines. If you too want to organise “COVID-compliant” events, our teams will give you all their tips. Our teams now also offer content-based events, on top of making venues available: speakers, workshops, activities – the lot. If you'd like to get in touch with our teams, it's here.

Impact

Finally, this year's newcomer, which made a dramatic entrance into our activities, is impact. Because in the end, given that the property sector isn't the best pupil in this area, we told ourselves it was time to stop hiding. So we decided to put impact at the heart of all the areas of expertise we mentioned above, in order to design eco-responsible workspaces and minimise our footprint as far as possible. On the fit-out side, in October we won the ADEME “Projet Perfecto” call for projects, to create a range of 100% eco-designed furniture... We'll tell you more in January!  

Our teams have also produced an eco-responsible moving guide, in case you'd like to take a look. All our coffee bars have recently been certified 1% For the Planet, to give a share of our profits to associations working for the environment. Speaking of commitment, we launched the “Les Engagés” offer to make it easier for B-Corp and 1% For The Planet companies to move in with Morning. And since it would be odd not to lead by example, we too are hard at work to obtain B-Corp certification in 2021!

As Clément Alteresco puts it, “the road ahead is still long, but our ambitions match the scale of what's at stake”.  

Solidarity in spades

This year was also marked by some notable surges of solidarity. We saw (and discovered the term) “pro bono” initiatives galore. For our part, we had begun the year by signing the Parental Act alongside 105 other companies (they're all brilliant) to allow the second parent to benefit from 100% paid leave. A small step forward for equality.

But above all, during the first lockdown, we set up a Solidarity Loan Fund. A solidarity mechanism in the form of a loan between companies, for our members, partners and suppliers. Today, we are proud to announce that thanks to this fund we were able to raise €260,000 (thanks to our generous donors) and support 10 projects that needed financial help. And here we're only talking about ourselves, but our members did some wonderful things. Between support for medical staff, the loan of machines to hospitals, and the provision of tools, solutions and services for companies, not to mention support for entrepreneurs, the list of good works set up by the coworkers is huge. It's an immense source of pride to host members like these.

And what about the community?  

This year, despite lockdown, we managed to organise a few moments of getting together, whether remotely or otherwise. First, the Weeks Of. Every quarter at Morning we organise a cycle of talks over the course of a week on a specific theme, and we invite members as well as outside figures and companies to come and speak. So last February we launched the Week of Impact, to discover committed players and draw inspiration from them. In June, we discussed what the future might look like once lockdown ended, during the Week of Tomorrow. Finally, in November, we wanted to end the year on a positive note with the Week of Optimism! All the talks can be watched again on replay.

On the activities side, we adapted too. We launched “Les Experts”, a series of webinars hosted by our coworkers every Tuesday and Thursday, to offer a break in your working day. Since last March, more than 40 webinars have been hosted by the Morning community, attended by some 1,600 people! You can sign up for the next 2021 editions here, by the way. On the sport side, our “Oh Hisse” sports programme has also gone digital: more than 68 sessions took place via cameras, amounting to nearly 5,000 litres of sweat spilled. Finally, for the food lovers, we also began offering online cookery classes. We launched two of them during December, and will keep going into 2021!

2020 was a year full of emotions, of the unexpected, of obstacles, of challenges, of actions, of government guidelines and so much more. Today we have only one wish, and that's to see you again in 2021, whether in the spaces or from behind your cameras! Happy New Year, everyone.