Executive Summary
Liz Smart Office CEO Robert Dittrich discusses using gamification incentives to bring employees back to the office and managing hybrid work environments. He highlights the importance of office attractiveness, noise management, and the need for new managerial skills to lead remote and in-office teams. Host Jörn "Joe" Menninger and Dittrich explore age-related views on remote work, emphasizing face-to-face interactions. They also talk about the customization of home office policies and the complexities of uniform rules across departments. Robert shares resources for managing remote teams and expresses openness to investor collaborations and hiring talent.
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Introduction
In today's show: Robert Dittrich, the CEO of Liz Smart Office. Robert shares his innovative approach to encouraging employees to return to the office through gamification and incentive programs. We'll uncover how Liz Smart Office is transforming the hybrid work environment by making office spaces more attractive and managing noise levels effectively. Joe and Robert also dive into the evolving landscape of talent retention, the importance of face-to-face interactions, and the new managerial skills required for remote and hybrid work. Plus, we'll explore Robert's extensive background in software development and his transition to leading a company that optimizes daily business operations in a hybrid model. If you're keen to learn about the tools and strategies for seamlessly managing workspace bookings, project collaboration, and more, you won't want to miss this episode. Let's dive in!
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Questions Discussed in the Interview
Incentives for Office Return: How can companies effectively use gamification and incentives to encourage employees to return to the office?
Office Attractiveness: What are some innovative ways companies can enhance the attractiveness of their office spaces for employees who are accustomed to working from home?
Noise Management in Hybrid Work: How important is managing noise levels in the office, and what strategies can be adopted to create a conducive environment for hybrid work?
Hiring Talent Beyond Sales Forecast: How has the shift to hiring talented individuals regardless of sales forecasts impacted company dynamics and employee retention strategies?
Age and Remote Work Preferences: Are there noticeable generational differences in attitudes toward remote work versus office work? How should companies address these differences?
Face-to-Face Interaction for Team Management: Why is face-to-face interaction crucial for managing teams effectively, and how can companies balance this need with the flexibility of remote work?
Remote Work Skills: What are the essential skills required for working remotely, and how can employees develop a balance between motivation and discipline?
New Managerial Skills for Hybrid Work: What new skills do managers need to lead teams effectively in a hybrid work environment, and how can they acquire these skills?
Customization of Work Models: How can companies tailor their approach to hybrid work to suit different roles and departments within the organization?
Health Considerations in Office Return: What health considerations should companies take into account when designing incentives to bring employees back to the office?x
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The Founder
In this episode of Startuprad.io, we delve into the innovative world of workplace management with our esteemed guest, Robert Dittrich (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-dittrich-0515a029/), the CEO of Liz Smart Office. Robert brings a wealth of experience from his extensive background in software development, which he has seamlessly transitioned into leading a forward-thinking company aimed at optimizing daily business operations in a hybrid work environment. Under his leadership, Liz Smart Office has emerged as a pioneer in managing office spaces, offering a comprehensive suite of tools to facilitate workspace booking, project collaboration, lunch scheduling, and even locker and parking spot reservations. Robert's vision is to create office environments that are not only functional but also attractive enough to encourage employees to embrace a blend of remote and on-site work.
Robert's deep understanding of the evolving dynamics of workplace culture is evident in his emphasis on the critical aspects of office attractiveness, noise management, and the gamification of incentives to draw employees back to the office. He recognizes that the future of work is hybrid, requiring a delicate balance between home comforts and the irreplaceable value of face-to-face interactions. His insights are particularly relevant in today's landscape, where companies are increasingly hiring talent irrespective of sales forecasts, focusing instead on talent retention and developing new managerial skills suitable for both remote and office settings. Through Liz Smart Office, Robert aims to address these modern challenges, making the office a place where employees want to be, rather than feel obligated to be.x
The Startup
Liz Smart Office (https://www.liz.solutions/), founded by CEO Robert Dittrich, has carved a unique niche in the tech-driven workspace management sector by adeptly addressing the exigencies of hybrid work environments. Having successfully secured early-stage funding from angel investors and strategic venture capital firms, the startup has leveraged these investments to rapidly scale their operations and refine their suite of smart office tools. These tools include sophisticated applications for workspace booking, project collaboration, lunch scheduling, and even locker and parking spot management, showcasing a holistic approach to optimizing daily office operations. Their agile and iterative development process, underpinned by significant financial backing, has fostered rapid innovation, allowing Liz Smart Office to stay ahead of the curve in an increasingly competitive landscape.
What sets Liz Smart Office apart from its competitors is its commitment to blending technology with human-centric office design, focusing not just on productivity but also on the well-being and engagement of employees. By incorporating gamified incentives to encourage office attendance and meticulously managing noise levels for a conducive hybrid working environment, they address common friction points that other solutions often overlook. This thoughtful approach is bolstered by Robert's extensive experience in software development and his strategic shift towards optimizing hybrid workspaces. Additionally, Liz Smart Office's adaptive system allows companies to customize their workspace configurations to fit industry-specific needs, roles, and departmental requirements, thereby offering a versatility that is both rare and highly valued in the market. With an eye on future growth, the company remains open to new collaborations and continually seeks to onboard talented individuals to sustain their innovative momentum.
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LIZ is hiring. You can learn more about the open positions here: https://liz-smart-office-gmbh.jobs.personio.de/
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The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
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Automated Transcript
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:00:00]:
Hello, and welcome, everybody. This is Joe from StartupRadio dot I o, your Startupradio podcast and YouTube blog from Germany. Today, I would like to welcome Robert here in our virtual recording studio. Hey, Robert. How are you doing?
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:00:14]:
Fine. Thank you. Nice to be here.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:00:17]:
It's totally my pleasure. And today, we thought we we give our interviews a little bit of a twist. Of course, we'll introduce you as the CEO of Liz Smart Office, spelled l I zed, if I'm correct. That's not it. Included in print. But the main thing you can use less smart office for is getting people back to the office, reusing your office space, and getting people back to work in the office. And so instead of focusing on the software, we're focusing more a little bit on the topic office, home office, and how to get employees back to the office because it appears to both of us this is right now a pretty hot topic. I'd like to, say a thank you to StartupRadio raven.com, the most easiest and efficient way to get your fundraising started and connect to investors and corporates.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:01:10]:
Learn more and get early access down here in the show notes, StartupRadio raven.com. That said, Robert, can you introduce yourself just a little bit to our audience?
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:01:22]:
Sure. So my name is Robert. I am right now 35 years old, the CEO of LIS. LIS was founded, like, 4 years ago in Berlin. So before that, I was product owner, product manager, and all of the product director title that you can have in many different kind of software as a service agencies and companies like search metrics, products app, and some other places. So before that, it was always like building software that help customers understanding their needs, getting their problems done. More and more out of how we can optimize always the daily business, and then moving to list to get, like, how I can optimize the daily business in case of how I should work daily. And that's not only mean, like, in my office, that also mean, like, in this hybrid work world that we are now having, what means the best place to work? Is it in the office? Is it not in the office? Is it a remote place or something like this? So this is what I'm doing here.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:02:29]:
We are sitting in Berlin. This is like a company direct in Berlin Mitte. We have a small office where we have, like, our own tool in place, working with at least 19 people right now. Most of them based in Berlin, but we also have, like, 100% remote people around Germany. So we are using our hybrid work methodology by ourself and working with a lot of bigger clients, in the region to get the best out of the office and out of the employees' daily work.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:03:05]:
That would be that would be one of my first questions. First, you did a lot of still search engine optimization. I I do believe I would need to start doing that myself, even though, most people find me through podcasting apps, but maybe we can have a chat about that afterwards. Yeah.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:03:26]:
Sure.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:03:29]:
I would be curious. Before we get into your software, as you said it's used for remote work. When the people get back to the office, they can basically, get a slot booked, a table booked, a place booked where they stay. But I would be curious what is your company rules, your company policy on being in the home office versus in the office? And how does it work for your company?
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:04:04]:
Joe let let me start with this. So smart office, we buy lists are not only the tool for getting the people back to the office. It's also like how I can manage my office, because it's not only that you're going to the office because you're not having, like, a place at home for working or something like this. It's about, like, who is in the office? What is my daily work? Can I work with somebody else? Is there a project where I have to work, like, more close together, for example? As well as what is the lunch for today? So can I book the lunchtime? Do I need, like, a locker? Do I need something else? Do I have a parking spot if I'm working in bigger, places and bigger cities here like in Berlin. Is it possible for me to go by car to the office? Can I book this all around this? Lisa is like the tool to manage this kind of stuff around the office. Be at Joe. Be at the right place, using some co working spaces as, like, offices as well because you're not having, like, all the people at one place. We at least we are working with the same methodology.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:05:14]:
You have, like, different kind of contigens that you can that you can use. So is it 100% remotely overall? No. It's not. We have, like, time to work at home. We have time to work in the office. And out of our perspective, it's most often likely case, what is the goal? So why I have to go to the office? And I think this is like this black and white questions overall, beside the question, what is the difference between remote work and homework? So I think many of us has sometimes the option, let us say, with kids, they need us at home or they are sick or something like this. And then normally or 80% of the time are working out of the office. But at this special cases, I have a doctor appointment or some but something else.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:06:05]:
It doesn't make sense out of a time perspective to go to the office, 1 hour traveling or something like this, and then doing the work, like, for 4 or 5 hours only, going back for 1 hour, and going to disappointment. So in this case, it makes more sense to stay at home, for example, doing the homework. But this is, out of our perspective, not the same like remote work. So many times also before corona and before, like, let us say, 3 or 4 years in the past, it was normal in some different kind of industries to working 100% remote. Is it the same like home industries to working 100% remote. Is it the same like home office? No. It's not. There are a lot of agencies.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:06:41]:
There are a lot of freelancers, and there are a lot of people outside, especially in the software as a service world who are normally working remotely. And also this kind of people need to be managed. Is it the normal case for companies in Germany or in the other kind of regions that we have? It is hard to explain that after corona, you have to go back. So out of a out of company perspective, you have to think of, okay, why I want as a manager or as a c level, why I want these people always come back? Is it about, like, do you work? Is it about, like, it was before normal Joe we come back to normal and go to the office again? And I think and as you can see in the in the CV from from my person, you have to think about this out out of a data driven perspective as well. So is it, like, good that you are coming back to the office? Is there enough space? And there are a lot of questions between, like, this black and white, you have to go back to the office, there is no home office. And like, I want to be like 100% Joe office or something like this. So a lot of questions open before you can already think about like a concept for your company. And I don't think also there is like a blueprint for a company what you has to do to make, like, hybrid work done.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:08:06]:
You can only Menninger the right questions to answer them for yourself. Do I have enough space in the office also after these years? Do I want to have this space in the office because it's always about, like, budget? It's it's going it's going higher and higher out of a price perspective in the bigger cities. Does it make sense to have, like, offices for 100 or 200 people big when I only has like 100 or 200 people? Is there really the necessary behind that I have for every employee and own desk, for example. The next question that you need is what kind of industry I am? So is this industry where I need, like, a special place in the in the offices? It's about data protection. It's about, like, people data. It's about, like, socializing and so on. And the next question is always, what kind of role and what kind of department I'm working with? So is this in my department necessary to be like always in the office? So and there are departments and there are also roles and jobs where you have to be there. So as a manager, I have to manage my team.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:09:14]:
Is it possible to do this 100% remotely? I think yes. In some, kind of departments and some kind of, companies, it is possible. But always don't forget the socializing. It is also important that you have, like, coffee breaks, in a real person, in the office, talking about some stuff, getting each other a little bit, closer together. And I think these are also some soft facts beside the hard facts to to be like part of the office. And I think the bigger discussion is coming always like we as a human, we are loving our our comfort zone. Right? We are learning in the last years, 2 or 3 years back with corona. Yes.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:09:56]:
We can do our office, or our our work from home, and we do not have to go to the office so much. And then it was easier for us. We are learning this. This is now our new comfort zone. But more and more, it is like, do I really have the place at home to do my work in this quality that I need to do? Ask this yourself. Like, do you have your own space for working? Is it like in my in my kitchen a small place and I put on or off the laptop? Or is it really like a desk with a rear chair, with the with the nice Internet connection, with a camera when we're talking about remote or anything? Here we see, like, some difference between, like, sometimes I can do home office because of some appointments, or I really work remotely. And this is also the question. So what we see and this is not a blueprint.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:10:46]:
This is more or less like what we learned over the last years with many of our clients is there is no blueprint that you can have, like, per company. You have to do this really as a concept for yourself and learning by doing. That means, like, giving yourself the opportunity and the possibility to to use the feedback from your employees to change it a little bit. Try it and then change it. The first concept will be not the last one. And there is so much, like, attributes that you can change, like some smaller stuff. Like, let me only see say it like, do I wanna book, like, per hour? Do I wanna book, like, per day? Is it, like, half day? Do I have, like, some some splitted work or something like this? Is it that I wanna book, like, only this type of resource, like Menninger rooms and so on? Do I have enough meeting rooms for this kind of project? And all this kind of other stuff. And you can try it.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:11:43]:
And I think like the best thing is try it and then always trial and error, trial and error as you like doing this with enormous software as a service project. What we see and what we can give you as an as an hint here is it's not black and white with, yes, we are allowing home office or we are not allowing home office. Try to work with contigens. So what we see is what will get more and more in a better quality is using different kind of contingents to, for example, say, this kind of employees in our company can have, like, 2 days a week home office, or one day a week they can book home office. And also possible, what kind of places I can book in the office then. Also working there with contingents. And I think this especially behind, like, asking yourself the questions, what is important for me as a company to get the people back to the office going in the right direction. So don't try to say, like, hey.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:12:44]:
You have to go back to the office because it was normal before. Thinking about, like, why I wanna bring them back to the office.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:12:53]:
That was that was quite a monologue, I have to say. For me, personally, I have been looking through different companies here and how much they are here in Germany require people to be in the office. There there are some where you as a general rule do have Joe office for example Baia, Master Skenskrupp, Zatorios, Vonovia, and so on and so forth. Then there are where the, leadership, the management team, and the teams decide individually BASF, Bain, BCG, BMW, Bosch, Continental, Daimler Trucks, EON, Fresenius, Lufthansa are in this group. And then there are with required days in the office, Adidas, 3 days a week, Allianz, 4 days a week. Amazon, 3 days a week. Bayezdorf, 3 days a week. Commerzbank, one day a week.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:13:54]:
Deutsche Bank, one day a week. Deutsche Bank, 2 or 3 days. Deutsche Borse, 3 days. And, personally, I I don't know, what motivated those people to to really set up those rules and if they do make sense for the general company. But I do get, like, the impression that a lot of people want to have people back in the home office for the very simple reason that they do believe that they are not productive, that that they are not working as hard when they're in the home office. That that's something I I even got from a lot of interviews. That's why, the companies want to require the people back to work. And if I do have some experience, if you don't lure people with incentives to do something, it's really, really hard to force people to do something.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:14:52]:
As far as I know, the only system in which really, command, the command structure really works like that is the military. In all other structures. I would personally take a different approach. So, I would be interested in terms of your your client. What what is the general rule and what you've seen as, like, exceptional perks to getting back to the office? Because when you Startupradio talking about stuff like that, I was really, first thing, lure back people back to the office. First thing that went through my mind, donuts.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:15:33]:
Yeah. I mean, like, let me start with this one. I I see the same with all of our clients that they are using this kind of let me call it, like, content gains, like, 2 or 3 days back to the office. We have to say it's not easy to have it over all departments always the same rule. There is always different kind of job titles, different kind of jobs. Some parts has to work from the from the office. Also, before, they will never have the option with home office, for example. So
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:16:03]:
personally, I would say if you have to take care of the utilities, if you're a receptionist, if you're working in the mail service, I don't see where you can how you can work from home. But there are a lot of jobs, especially in the service economy, you could basically do from home. Maybe even better, you don't get disturbed that much. And maybe even your way to the coffee machine is not as long. You never know.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:16:30]:
That's true. That's true. Let me go to the to the second part, how we can go back to the office, not only with doughnut. Doughnut is always a good good approach, I would say. But it's it's not good for your health. So if you're thinking about, like, health of your employers not doing, like, everyday donuts, move it a little bit. But we are working with an incentive. We are calling, like, it's not about, like, sales of our cool tool.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:16:58]:
It is a cool tool. We are saying, that incentives are working, and incentives are working if you're doing this as a gamification factor. We are calling this in in our platform, office heroes. So you get, like, points if you are booking in the office. And if you're going to the office, you get more points than working from home. And this you then can change, for example, for a lunch or for some cool fancy stuff. So this is like a gamification factor for an incentive to to get this stuff done. Is it the point why the people then come back to the office? I would say no.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:17:39]:
I think this is one tool to make it, like, funnier and make it more attractive to go to the office. I think the most important thing is how I can work in the office with my teammates together. And to make this better, think about, like, is my office attractive enough for hybrid work or this office 3 point Joe? I think this is a really important part because if you're thinking not only about, like, home office or the office case, what is the the the negative feedback we always get from our employees in bigger kind of companies. It's always about, like, there are not not enough meeting rooms. It is too loud in some spaces and so on. So think about how you can make your offers better to come back. Let me quote it like this. And there are some some options around this.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:18:37]:
So thinking about, like, do I have to move, like, the building to get, like, more meeting rooms? No. Thinking about, like, telephone boxes, some quiet areas, and so on. Manage this with tools to to make, like, all these areas available. And that's right. Not every people always have the option to book home office. So make it clear which department or which role or which people can do what and out of which kind of reason. I think this is also important. Make it transparent why you can do this and this and this and this not.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:19:10]:
I think this is also important because the trust factor, yes, I agree. That is an important part in the news and in podcast and so on. But is it really the fact why you wanna get back the people in the office? So is can you have more quality when the people are sitting in the office?
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:19:32]:
That is the question, and I'm not sure if it's an h thing or not in the management community. Because if you go to the, managers tending towards thirties, forties, you're definitely in the incentivize stage because they also do understand that talented people are really hard to come by. That's why, in Germany, we've seen right now something that has not happened before because companies in Germany used to hire on the forecast of their sales. Now they hire to have a bench of talented people, abstracted from the revenue forecast in order just to stay just to get their hands on the talent. So, that is one perspective, But if you go to people in leadership going out of the forties into their fifties and the sixties, it's not like a black and white picture again, but see predominantly people who want to have them back in the office. They don't understand. They don't want either or they actually see in reality that the people in the home office are not more productive.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:20:53]:
I think this is a really important point that you mentioned, the talented one and the hiring. Because, I mean, all of us who are working especially in the software as a service world, who can hire developers directly in the same city where the where the company is. I don't see this. I mean, like, going to to LinkedIn or whatever or going to some HR agencies and try to find, like, the right talent for your team and this especially in the region where your department or where the ready building of the headquarters. It's not possible somehow. And if I if I really go for talents, and this is why I also have developers who are not working in the same town. They are working, like, from Berlin, especially, like, 2 hours away. They are coming sometimes, but other people are working, like, far away from us in Germany.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:21:45]:
So that's the that's the case. And that was not the first company where we have it like this, especially like with software development. Other kinds of cases when you mentioned like management, I would split like the age from a management perspective, especially this is what I mentioned before with if you're a manager, my job is not only like, from 9 to 5, doing this stuff in a project, It is also to manage my team. And managing is also with socializing. So that means, like, manage people is always together with seeing these people, getting a good feeling, getting a better understanding from each other, working together. And I think this is where it comes from that I want to see my team. And this is an important part of an of an working team. But I think you have to you cannot compare 2 different kind of worlds here.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:22:41]:
So there will be software as a service companies who are working 100% remotely, and it's working. And you will have other kind of companies who are working, like, 0% remotely. They will be in the office, and it works also 100%. So it really depends on how the company and in which industry the company is working for, what kind of goal. Joe and this is what I mean. It's not black or white. You have to define it for your company. What is what is the right way?
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:23:09]:
And, also, you have to kind of retool yourself as a manager, as a leader because it used to be the case that you just had to sit in your office doing some some work and make sure the team stays until 10 till the work is really done and then go home as well. But now you don't have like physical control. You don't feel as empowered as you used to. Plus it is always a different thing if he sits in a fancy corner office in the thirties floor of a skyscraper instead of at home like me looking at the wall with plaque acoustic foam. So there are there are 2 quite different, different, situations right here. But I do understand we need to relearn and retool ourself to lead completely remote teams. Because my personal feeling is that the home office and the tendency to the home office will not go away anytime. In the future, I do assume a lot of companies will, as I already see with many StartupRadio here because they're always taking up the the most recent trends, they'll start to really get remote only half contingency, some meeting rooms, bookable in a co working space, and then basically work remotely from everywhere and just have a legal main address somewhere, a mailbox.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:24:43]:
Yeah. I think it's a it's a skill factor. I mean, like every person at different kind of skill sectors. As a manager, you are talented in communication, for example. You are talented in managing these people and so on. And I think one new skill factor is, can I work remotely? So is it possible that I have, like, the discipline to do remote work? If I'm in the office, the motivation itself is other people are seeing this. I'm around other people. It motivates me for working.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:25:14]:
But it's always the case, like, the balance between motivation and discipline. Motivation is good enough somehow sometimes, but what brings me, like, to the goal is always or what brings me over the line is always, like, the the discipline. And it is like the case in the office, and it is like the case in the in the home office or in the in the remote work. I think it is a skill factor for a person. It is important if you're looking or hiring for new talent people. What kind of people do I really know? And, yes, I agree. If you're looking for a facility manager or office manager, home office is good if you have appointments or something like this, but I need you to be, like, in place there. And the same for many kind of other jobs.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:25:59]:
So and in this case, it's more about, like, how I can my can can the office, like, be productive enough, nice enough, to be, like, part of the new work? And do I have the right tools in place to manage all this stuff? And as a manager, I also totally agree with you. You need these the factors or the skill set. Can I manage a team between, like, remote and, office? What I have to do as a manager to to build this up? Do I need, like, some new structures, some new processes to manage these kind of things? I'm also thinking that
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:26:39]:
have you not seen any place where there's kind of toolbox, a lot of interesting collections on how you can retool yourself, what you what other people have learned because learning from the books is just basically trial and error of other people and the more you read the more you avoid that. And I do believe a lot of the problems of entrepreneurs because why they need to fail so often is because there are no books about what they're doing. Joe do you see like a blog, a newsletter, or something like this or a few of them that really could help the people listening here to really get into this new modus operandi in managing people in their respective home office?
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:27:31]:
Not yet. It's out of my perspective. It's a really good idea to manage this with a block. We are working with a lot of agencies and and, companies together who are helping to creating a better office. But this is also then especially for 1 company or for for one customer in this kind of case. So let's stay here together. I would say to have more and more podcasts around, like, this topic and going, like, step by step in the right direction, what I have to do, what are the right questions I have to answer myself to be, like, a good manager for remote people, having the right office for getting the people back, and what are the difference in the different kind of areas, for example. Because it can be or we see this.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:28:17]:
It is a little bit different if you compare, for example, Germany, your UK or US or something like this. It's always, really different there.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:28:26]:
Well, actually, very wise words. That was the first step towards, towards, remote hybrid work in the future. Robert, I'd like to thank you very much. Everybody who'd like to learn more, you can go down here in the show notes. There'll be a link to your personal LinkedIn profile as well as to list Office and the Office software, your company website. And I usually close out with 2 additional questions. One of them is are you open to talk to new investors? Because I do know a lot of investors are listening to this.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:29:00]:
Yes. We are always looking for strategic partners and investors. That's always an important part of our of our work. We think, like, putting the the work there together makes a lot of sense.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:29:14]:
And one question, would you consider yourself for a very large investor to be counterweight of their commercial real estate, meaning their off the value of their offices go down and list office, the software Joe up, would you see that kind of a hedge for them?
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:29:30]:
I think, yes. Let us let us discuss this part. I think, all of these kind of cases can be interesting cases for the future. I think we see a lot of, like, switching, especially in the office real estate world right now. We're seeing a lot of potential there and opportunities there. So we are open for, some good talks about this.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:29:52]:
And the last question, as always, are you looking for talented people, and how many days do you require them to be on-site?
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:29:59]:
We are always looking for new talented people, especially for the development, for the HR, for, sales, and also for our CSM team. So, as I mentioned before, we are sitting in the middle of Berlin. It's a cool place. It's a nice place. We are loving to work there, and I think to work there with us more than 3 days in the week, it's a good part.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:30:28]:
Great. Robert, was a pleasure having you here. Thank you very much.
Robert Dittrich | CEO Liz Smart Office [00:30:33]:
Thank you.
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