Co-Workation Case Study: Reforming Work Environments Through a "Fourth Place" Beyond the Office

Overview

After the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work became widespread, but it also brought new challenges to the surface, such as weakening ties within organizations and fewer opportunities for team building. With the traditional office-centered way of working, it became harder to build creative collaboration and deep teamwork, and many companies felt the need for offsite meetings and retreat-style training.

However, planning and running offsite meetings or retreat-style training involves a great deal of coordination, from choosing accommodation to arranging training content and preparing equipment, which placed a heavy burden on the people in charge. Venues and content also had to be arranged separately, making efficient planning and execution difficult.

Co-Workation was developed to solve these problems, with the concept of creating "stay experiences where people work (WORK) together (CO), beyond just the office (WORKATION)." As a platform for co-creating organizational experiences in a "fourth place" that is neither the office, home, nor a café, it offers a concierge-style service that arranges accommodation, training and experience content, and the necessary equipment all at once.

The service officially launched in summer 2021 and supports companies' "work environment reform" through a business partnership with the Japan Workation Association and its availability as a member benefit of Relo Club's employee benefits program, Fukuri Kosei Club.

Challenges

• Weakening ties within organizations as remote work spread

• Too few opportunities for team building and offsite meetings

• The complexity of planning and arranging offsite meetings and retreats

• The inefficiency of arranging accommodation and content separately

• A lack of places for creative collaboration

What We Did

• Developed a co-creation workation platform for businesses

• Built a system to arrange accommodation, training and experience content, and equipment all at once

• Provided a fully tailor-made concierge service

• Implemented matching between venue providers and content providers

• Developed post-event survey and reflection support features

• Started from an MVP and expanded features step by step while grasping market needs

Results

• Formed a business partnership with the Japan Workation Association on a concierge alliance

• Offered as a member benefit of the Fukuri Kosei Club employee benefits program (Relo Club)

• Connected with 750 workplaces across Japan through TeamPlace

• Contributed to advancing companies' "work environment reform"

Our Scope of Work

• Requirements definition

• Design

• Development

• Testing

• Operations

Client Information

Company Name

PerkUP Inc. https://perkup.life/

Mission

To create a society where rich work styles are possible, by standing alongside organizations and the people who work in them and updating the environments they work in

Vision

Bring science to the encounters between people and regions, and create a world where travel enriches the future

Business Overview

• Coworkation.com (a training and retreat arrangement service for businesses)

• MEETSCUL (a matching platform for travelers and local businesses)

• TeamPlace (a platform connecting more than 750 workplaces)

• Lime Resort Hakone (operation of a retreat facility)

• Myoko Highland Visitor Center (a nature and culture experience center)

• Support for diverse ways of working for companies and local governments

• Support for regional revitalization projects

Representatives

CEO Aya Aso / COO Haruhisa Saito

Product Information

Name

Co-Workation https://co-workation.com/

Mission

Co-create organizational experiences in a "fourth place" and promote work environment reform

Service Overview

Co-Workation is a co-creation workation platform for businesses. It offers a concierge-style service that arranges, all at once, the best accommodation for corporate retreats and offsite meetings, training and experience content, and even the preparation of the necessary equipment.

By creating "stay experiences where people work (WORK) together (CO), beyond just the office (WORKATION)," it delivers experiences in which organizations nurture a rich culture and engagement in a "fourth place" that is neither the office, home, nor a café.

Features

• A one-stop service with everything arranged at once

• Fully tailor-made planning

• A network of venues and content across Japan

• Day-trip use also supported

• Post-event reflection support

Feature List

• Venue search and matching

• Content search and matching

• Bulk arrangement management system

• Setting conditions for area, dates, and number of people

• Venue provider registration and management

• Content provider registration and management

• Tailor-made planning

• Reservation management system

• Estimate creation

• Support for day-trip use

• Equipment arrangement management

• Survey creation and distribution

• Reflection support tools

• Inquiry management

Project Challenges

PerkUP Inc. was founded in 2020 with the mission of "standing alongside organizations and the people who work in them and updating the environments they work in." As ways of working changed dramatically through the COVID-19 pandemic, new challenges facing companies became clear.

First, as remote work spread, opportunities for face-to-face communication between employees decreased, and ties and a sense of unity within organizations weakened. It was especially hard for new employees and members of different departments to build deep relationships, making it a challenge to foster organizational culture and raise engagement.

Next, while it was understood that offsite meetings and retreat-style training are effective for building creative collaboration and deep teamwork, planning and running them came with many challenges. A wide range of coordination tasks arose, such as choosing accommodation, arranging training content, and preparing equipment, placing a very heavy burden on the people in charge.

Furthermore, accommodation and content providers had to be found and negotiated with separately. Not only did each arrangement take time, but matching venues with content and coordinating schedules was complicated. Information about attractive local venues and content providers was also scattered, making it difficult to find the best options.

The aim of this project was to solve these challenges and provide an environment in which companies can co-create creative experiences in a "fourth place" beyond the office.

How the Project Was Run

In the early stages of the project, we held detailed interviews with corporate HR staff and executives about the challenges of offsite meetings and retreat-style training. We carefully gathered the concrete problems they faced on the ground, such as the complexity of making arrangements, the difficulty of choosing venues and content, and the complexity of managing costs.

Next, we set "experience co-creation" as the platform's concept. Rather than a simple booking site, the goal was to build an ecosystem in which three parties, companies, venue providers, and content providers, work together to create the best possible experience.

Because the vision was very large and the project was a new undertaking that required coordination among planners, venue providers, and content providers, we adopted a strategy of first releasing a minimum set of features (MVP). We narrowed the focus to the core function of arranging venues and content together, and decided to expand features step by step while grasping market needs.

With a concierge-style service design, we built a system in which a company simply states its conditions (area, dates, number of people, purpose, and so on), and a dedicated concierge matches the best venues and content and plans everything fully tailor-made. This freed the people in charge at companies from complex coordination work and let them focus on their real goals: organizational development and team building.

In addition, by providing post-event survey features and reflection support tools, the service goes beyond simply "providing a place" and supports the continuous growth of organizations.

Since its launch in summer 2021, the service has been expanding its partnerships, including a business partnership with the Japan Workation Association and a tie-up with the Fukuri Kosei Club employee benefits program (Relo Club), raising the value of the service.

We continue to extend and improve the platform's features based on companies' needs and feedback.

Technical Features

• Cloud infrastructure and scalability: AWS: Amazon Web Services is used to achieve automatic scaling and high availability. The service can be delivered reliably even as connections with venue and content providers across Japan grow.

• Backend development: Go: the backend is implemented in the Go language, providing fast and efficient server-side processing. It handles reservation management and matching efficiently.

• Frontend development: React & Next.js: the frontend is built on React and uses Next.js, which supports server-side rendering and static site generation. This speeds up initial page loads and optimizes SEO.

• Matching algorithm: an algorithm that matches a company's conditions (area, dates, number of people, purpose) with the characteristics of venues and content has been implemented to produce the best proposals.

• Reservation management system: a system that centrally manages reservations for multiple venues and content providers was built, making schedule coordination and availability checks more efficient.

• Concierge support tools: tools that support managing venue and content information and creating estimates are provided so that concierges can plan smoothly.