Visiting family down in Waterford over the half-term break, this writer decided to book into a co-working space to spend a day focusing on writing, away from the distractions of family-in-holiday mode.
Top of the to-do list was an interview to conduct for this feature, with Karl Finn, director of operations for PublicRelay in Ireland.
Coincidentally, after making the booking on the Connected Hubs portal, the very site chosen to use, WorkLab in Waterford’s IDA Business Park, is where the US-headquartered company has one of its three Irish offices.
Kelly at reception kindly pinged him and we were on the phone within the hour. As it happened, had it not been half term, any other Wednesday this writer might have bumped into him grabbing a coffee, as he makes the trip from his home to spend a day with the team there every other week.
This type of coincidence is not unusual in the collaborative world of Connected Hubs. In my usual workspace at Dingle Hub, two hotdesking clients discovered they were on a Zoom call to each other from neighbouring soundproof booths, and quickly went offline and into the canteen to continue their meeting in real life.
Connection is what it’s all about. While remote workers are making savings in rent and transport, being able to live and work in rural Ireland, there’s a lot to be said for leaving the confines of the home office.
Getting out of the house and interacting with people in the real world is good for mental health, building a sense of community and sparking new ideas and business collaborations.
The company Karl works for, PublicRelay is a media analytics company, headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, USA, which offers its clients a daily newsletter detailing significant company and stakeholder mentions in the media, as well as industry trends.
He explains how, as the company’s business grew, its US clients began to look for this vital information to arrive in their inboxes earlier and earlier each morning, and management decided it was time to move analyst operations into a more friendly time zone.
Employees have the best of both worlds, with face-to-face time in a regional office and the benefits of hybrid working
Outside their Dublin headquarters, PublicRelay uses hubs for two of its three locations in Ireland—Cavan Digital Hub, where the IDA client company opened its second Irish office in November 2019, and the aforementioned WorkLab in Waterford.
With the firm taking the entire top floor of Cavan Digital Hub, Finn says that post pandemic it was an ideal place to bring staff back to. Beyond the safe and clean work conditions it offered for staff to return to the office, Karl says the local hub manager Leanne has been key to integrating into the local business community, almost picking up where IDA Ireland left off, helping him, a Dublin-born and Kildare-resident, to navigate the unfamiliar in the area.
“It’s much more than the four walls, in that regard. It offers introductions and local knowledge. Leanne is nearly an advisor to the company at this stage, she’s been super helpful with challenges that we faced along the way.”
A company like PublicRelay turning up in Cavan was somewhat of a “unicorn-like” occurrence says Karl. “When we originally went there, there were very few professional, white-collar jobs, where people could develop a career.”
PublicRelay is a great example of the National Hub Network and Connected Hubs initiative creating an ecosystem where companies can access a broader pool of talent beyond the oversubscribed cities. Employees have the best of both worlds, with face-to-face time in a regional office and the benefits of hybrid working as well.
The opening of the Waterford office also opened up a recruitment avenue to PublicRelay that would not have been available in Dublin, where they were competing with the big tech companies for the same people, he says.
“You’re tapping pools of talent that aren’t normally available to you. If we were just based in Dublin, maybe these people would decide to commute into the office, but it’s been more likely for us to hire some really great people both in Cavan and in Waterford.”
Stephen Carolan is the programme manager for the National Hub Network and points to the other advantages for growing businesses in a hub space that don’t necessarily affect an already established company such as PublicRelay. For entrepreneurs and start-ups, the flexibility of walking into turnkey, ready-to-use office space, without getting tied into a hefty commercial property lease, is a boon. The business supports and links to Local Enterprise Offices are another bonus.
For companies thinking about where to locate, either a HQ or a secondary office, hubs in Dublin’s commuter belt and those based near third level institutions which offer a talent pipeline, are growing in popularity, Carolan says.
The Connected Hubs online platform maps Ireland’s hub infrastructure and allows users to pinpoint the nearest hubs to their location and book workspace or meeting rooms online. The platform also has useful features such as options to export receipts in a variety of formats.
“We launched with 62 hubs back in May 2021,” recalls Carolan. “We now have 330.” This equates to about 22,000 available desks, of which about 80 per cent are occupied at any one time.”
While infrastructure and technology are key pillars of the whole initiative, community building is really the secret sauce, he says. Connected Hubs is a key commitment in Our Rural Future, the Government of Ireland’s national policy for rural Ireland, which offers direct access to over 300 hubs nationwide. It brings all the hub managers together to share knowledge on everything from working on funding applications to tackling the energy crisis.
For companies developing their remote and hybrid work strategies, there are now three options to consider in the mix: home, HQ and hubs. Carolan concludes, “You can grow a business and have a career in rural Ireland and be as connected to the rest of the world as you need to be.”
For a full map of showing the locations of the 330 Connected Hubs across Ireland click here