How Hopper leveraged FlexDesk to expand coworking network coverage by 10x

Situation

Hopper is an online travel booking platform with nearly 700 employees worldwide.

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The organization prides itself on being remote-first and originally set up a corporate account with WeWork to provide employees with drop-in access to coworking space.

Problem

While the coworking program served as a great solution for employees that lived nearby a WeWork location in major cities, Hopper found that WeWork didn’t have the network coverage to serve their entire employee base, especially in smaller towns. Hopper was also mindful of WeWork’s uncertain financial situation and shrinking footprint.

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Catherine Sabourin, Office & People Ops Administrator at Hopper, explained this in more detail. “I wanted to provide all our employees with equal and fair access to this company benefit. I received plenty of requests for more options and tried my best to accommodate. But I didn’t have the time to manage arrangements with every boutique coworking brand, especially as we onboarded new employees every month.”

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Beyond location coverage, Hopper didn’t have an easy way to control their spend and institute booking policies.

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Hopper found FlexDesk, and less than 4 weeks later employees were beginning to onboard.

Solution

Hopper leveraged FlexDesk’s Coworking Management Platform to provide employees with global access to coworking space. Through FlexDesk, Hopper increased network coverage by 10x, with over half of the locations representing local spaces in convenient neighborhoods.

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Hopper also used FlexDesk’s Managed Admin program to integrate their WeWork corporate account. This centralized the booking experience for employees on FlexDesk – spanning WeWork and non-WeWork locations – while preserving the competitive pricing model Hopper had previously negotiated with WeWork.

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Furthermore, Hopper setup spend limits to ensure the program was being used tastefully, but not wastefully, by employees.

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Hopper also let employees use their own discretion on when to switch over from the WeWork booking app to the FlexDesk booking app.

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“We had a feeling employees would love the FlexDesk booking experience, but we didn’t want to force their hand. We let employees continue using the WeWork app, and register with FlexDesk at their leisure. As a result, the transition was incredibly smooth, even for employees that continued booking the same WeWork location through FlexDesk.”

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Results

Hopper has seen consistent growth in employee adoption, with over 20% participation across 35 countries and expanding further each month. 70% of employees return after their first use and use FlexDesk every week to get out of the house and access a productive coworking space.

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Hopper finds the “whenever you’re ready” approach to employees switching to FlexDesk reinforces the autonomy that comes with their remote-first model and increases overall employee engagement.

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Hopper’s A/P team also appreciates the single-currency bill with employees using FlexDesk in 35 countries.

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Most importantly, Catherine has the confidence that she can scale the coworking program without encountering unwieldy time-consuming tasks.

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“We can onboard as many employees onto FlexDesk as we hire, and the program continues to run on autopilot. I leverage FlexDesk as my primary real estate solution for our remote employees.”

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