IdeaPlace on DEWURADIO: How Work and Business Are Changing in Wrocław

How do we work today? Why do we still need an office if we can spend part of the week working from home? And why does Wrocław continue to attract people who want to grow their businesses here? These were some of the topics Jutta Hutsch-Kasprzyk and Ewa Rogoż from IdeaPlace discussed on DEWURADIO.

The conversation focused on the labour market, entrepreneurship and the changing role of the office. Jutta and Ewa talked about who comes to IdeaPlace today, why companies are increasingly looking for flexibility and why, after years of remote work, many people are once again choosing to work around others. This is something we know not only from reports or business discussions. We see it every day at Plac Solny – in people dropping into the coworking space a few times a week, teams meeting in person for project work and companies that are only beginning to establish their presence in Wrocław.

The office is changing because the way we work has changed

Just over a decade ago, an office usually meant one thing: a fixed workplace you went to every day. Today, that model is far less obvious.

IdeaPlace welcomes self-employed professionals, freelancers and employees of large companies whose employers do not have their own office in Wrocław. There are also teams that do not need a shared workspace five days a week but still want to meet face to face on a regular basis.

And this is exactly how the role of the office is evolving. Increasingly, it is no longer an obligation built into the working week, but a tool you choose when it genuinely helps: when you need to focus, meet your team, talk to a client or simply step away from your home routine for a few hours.

This is also how coworking at IdeaPlace works – you can use the space at your own pace, without committing to the traditional model of working from the same place five days a week.

But there is more behind this change than convenience.

After an intense period of remote work, many people have started to feel the lack of everyday human contact more strongly. In a shared workspace, networking does not need to be scheduled in your calendar. Sometimes a conversation over coffee, a quick question to the person at the next desk or simply knowing you are not spending the whole day working alone is enough.

This is also one of the foundations of IdeaPlace – the community matters just as much as the space itself.

Does Wrocław still attract people and businesses?

Is Wrocław a good place to do business? Definitely. From the IdeaPlace perspective, you can see it in the wide variety of companies making their way to the city. It does not always begin with a ready-made office, a large team and a complete local structure. Sometimes the first step is just a handful of people, a temporary place to work and the need for someone who can help the company find its feet in the local market.

This also shows how much the process of entering a new city has changed. Companies no longer need to begin with a multi-year lease and build their entire office infrastructure from scratch. They can first assemble a team, get to know the local business environment and only then decide what kind of workspace they really need.

Wrocław also offers something that is difficult to capture in a spreadsheet: a dense network of people, companies and connections. And from the perspective of IdeaPlace – a place that has been operating in the very centre of the city since 2011 – we can see how often new projects begin with exactly those connections.

15 years of IdeaPlace are, above all, stories of people and businesses

Fifteen years in business can be summed up in numbers: companies supported, desks rented or meetings hosted. But during their conversation with DEWURADIO, Jutta and Ewa chose something else – stories about people.

One of the people working from our coworking space has just finished writing a book. Others have worked on their PhD dissertations at IdeaPlace because this was where they found the focus they needed. Some started their professional journey at a single desk and went on to build much larger businesses of their own. And then there was a story on a completely different scale: a large American company that spent its first year managing preparations for a new factory near Wrocław from IdeaPlace – from construction to recruitment. The company moved on, but the relationships built here have lasted for years.

And perhaps that is the best way to explain what coworking has become over the years. It is not simply a place to put your laptop. People come here at different stages of their professional lives: when they are starting a business, changing careers, building a new team, looking for focus or simply needing a break from working alone. You cannot plan who will sit at the next desk. But sometimes a chance conversation turns into a useful contact, a new idea or a future collaboration.

That is why, after 15 years, we still prefer to think of IdeaPlace as a community of people working in their own way, rather than simply another office space in the centre of Wrocław. It is also one of the core ideas behind our brand – real stories and everyday experiences matter more than a catalogue of available spaces.

Listen to the full interview and hear the story straight from Wrocław’s airwaves:

Or see what IdeaPlace can offer you:

Aleksandra Józwik