Category: Office Space

It’s no longer just freelancers and small businesses that use shared rental work spaces anymore – they are actually quite popular; but why?

 

With steady growth leading experts to estimate that approximately 3.8 million people will be making use of shared work spaces in the world by 2020, from just 1.18 million in 2017, it’s become clear that coworking is supplying a demand that was previously left untapped, and unrecognized.

 

As it becomes more and more prohibitively expensive to lease and manage office spaces in the world’s largest and most competitive cities, entrepreneurs and businesses alike are forced to find alternative work spaces. Coworking spaces have also grown to meet a new demand for flexibility in an age of eternal uncertainty – as businesses and individuals seek to take greater risks and chase after bigger ideas for the sake of innovation, it becomes more and more important to cut down on costs and minimize commitment.

 

Shared spaces save on space and allow a larger number of individuals and groups to account for the costs, giving startups and other professionals the opportunity to set up and work in some of the world’s most competitive and exciting cities at a much lower cost, without the pitfalls of working from home or virtually. But what constitutes a rental workspace, and how is it superior to working out of a coffee shop, or leasing a cheaper office further away from the city center?

 

What are Shared Rental Work Spaces?

At its simplest, a rental work space is an office that consists of multiple professionals and companies, rather than just one company. As such, they function on a fundamentally different model from traditional office spaces, particularly in terms of pricing and freedom.

 

While a landlord may lease an empty office space to a business for several years, with the permission to redesign the office as they see fit, these work spaces are furnished and designed by the owners, with spaces leased to individuals and companies on a monthly basis. Like a monthly membership or subscription, companies are free to simply leave and opt out of their monthly renewal or continue.

 

Work spaces come with a variety of amenities rolled into the monthly price, including wired or wireless high-speed Internet, break rooms, comfortable seating, secluded meeting or conference rooms, a kitchen, and more. Some spaces encourage companies to bring their own equipment, while supplying equipment that is usually communal, such as:

 

• • • Printers
    • Conference equipment
    • Monitors
    • Televisions

 

As such, the workspaces feature a much lower overhead, as well as an attractive monthly fee versus a several-year-long commitment to a hefty and expensive lease. For smaller companies and freelancers, this makes for a much better alternative to seeking out a private office in a large city.

 

Because shared workspaces are inviting to a variety of different professionals, they have also opened the door to a completely new way of working together, encouraging cooperation and networking within the office. But for whom?

Who Uses Them?

Rental work spaces are ideal for partnerships, businesses, and individuals that lack the capital to afford a private office and could benefit from networking and potentially cooperating with other professionals in a variety of different fields. Coworking spaces are very popular among sole proprietors and smaller teams, but function equally well for:

 

• • • Smaller companies
    • New start-ups
    • Temporary partnerships
    • Entrepreneurs
    • Freelancers

 

Aside from smaller firms and partnerships, coworking spaces are ideal for temporary teams, for professionals who need a shared space to work for just a few months on a project, before disbanding. While common among film crews, this type of setup is now growing in popularity in other industries as well, especially with the growth of virtual workspaces and rental spaces.

 

Larger corporations can also make use of coworking spaces by utilizing them for satellite offices in regions far away from their usual private offices, saving on the costs of preparing an office for every physical location. While established businesses profit from having a branded space to receive clients, this is not always necessary.

 

When to Transition from Shared Work Spaces to a Private Office?

It’s still critical not to forget that the private office isn’t going out of style – it’s simply coexisting with a brand-new model for work rooms. Companies that can afford to invest in their own private office space are not going to wholesale give up on that luxury for a coworking space potentially shared with competitors.

 

However, it is very likely that they are already profiting from the benefits of a coworking space through the work they outsource to freelance professionals and other smaller companies, as well as entire departments and satellite offices set up in different states and cities.

 

If you’re thinking of choosing between a private office and a coworking space, it helps to keep in mind the pros and cons. Shared work spaces, as previously mentioned, provide the space for collaboration, improve productivity in many cases, help keep workers happier, and boast much lower costs than traditional offices. However, there are cases where the cons of coworking overshadow its benefits.

 

If you have an established business with serious capital, then the need for networking and collaborating on projects with other companies or professionals may not be that high. Meanwhile, you may also want to control your own work environment, improving productivity in your own way by catering to your workers, rather than being at the mercy of how busy a coworking space may be at any given day.

Choosing The Space That is Best for You

Your clients may also be expecting a certain level of business, meaning that having your own office and signage could be important to sending the message that you’re an established and growing business looking for larger long-term profitable relationships.

 

• • • Through your own office, you maintain complete control over:
    • Ergonomics
    • Furnishings
    • Break room choices
    • Lighting
    • Design, and much more

 

You can match your business’ tone with your choices in design and layout, rather than having to mesh with other companies as well. A private office is also a safer office, especially if you’re working with client information that is best kept confidential.

 

Private office space is not ideal for every business, especially in this day and age. But there may come a time when you outgrow a cowork space. Ideally, you can put the benefits of both to use, working with professionals out of nearby coworking spaces while providing a private space for your own crew.

 

Luckily, The Collection offers both. Whether you are looking for shared workspace, or your own traditional office, call us today!

 

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Creating a Positive Work Environment With Coworking

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The benefits of coworking are aplenty. From lower costs to greater networking opportunities and plenty of improvements to innovation and productivity, these spaces enable over a million workers around the globe to work smarter, rather than harder. 

 

There’s nothing wrong with hard work – but it’s easy to argue that there’s plenty of that going around as is.

 

As mounting evidence shows that stress at the workplace and a lack of healthy balance is contributing to worker burnout and rising levels of depression and anxiety, we must do more to help keep workers and freelancers healthy.

 

The Benefits of Coworking

 

It’s only when we’re healthy that we can work productively.

 

As such, the benefits of coworking extend past the bottom line and toward critical issues, such as worker crunch and the mental effects of a monotonous and oppressive office atmosphere.

 

Combating the Negative Side Effects of Telecommuting

 

While telecommuting allows many to take better advantage of the time usually spent physically relocating to an office, showing up to work and being around other people is important.

 

• It can boost productivity and creativity, in the right environment
• Spending your working hours entirely alone isn’t always healthy

 

Loneliness is a crushing problem affecting millions of Americans, and despite being more digitally connected than ever, we’re spreading ever further apart. Coming together in a collective space to share ideas and work together can be very healthy and productive.

 

The benefits of coworking spaces is that they enable more people to do just this, often with better commutes and a greater variety of options on where to work, and when to work. There is more flexibility and freedom.

 

Cheaper Overhead, Simpler Costs

 

Perhaps the greatest benefit at a glance is the lower overall costs, and the much lower time investment.

 

Startups with few resources as is now have the opportunity to seek out a premium office space at a monthly cost, without the hassle of finding the right space to lease out for a year or more, not to mention the costs of getting everything up and running with the proper equipment.

 

The overhead for setting up an office can be immense – yet there’s little reason to do so when there are more benefits to be enjoyed from working through a coworking space, especially in the first few months.

 

The flexibility of being able to renew a membership every month also removes the sense of commitment that comes with signing a lease. This gives startups the ability to change their mind at any moment and invest in a space of their own when they feel the time and money to do so is available.

 

Something for Everyone 

 

A common criticism among first-time purveyors of the idea of coworking is the fact that, at first sight, it’s an incredibly chaotic environment.

 

The lack of personal space in the classical sense, and the lack of the ‘box’ by the oppressive cubicles of old, seems to inspire the fear that anyone willing to give it a chance is going to find loud noise and chaos.

 

Yet this isn’t true of most flexible spaces, including The Collection. While some are overcrowded and underequipped, good spaces are limited in the amount of space they provide. Therefore, it is not an issue for workers or freelancers to find a spot they feel comfortable in.

 

Many spaces set aside a portion of their space specifically for areas of silence, where those bothered by the noise and the networking can retreat temporarily to do the bulk of their creative work, before returning to the ‘overworld’ to socialize, network, soak up fresh ideas, or just take a quick break before attending to the next task.

 

For example, our monthly offices are private offices, giving everyone in our office rental space their privacy, while only paying for monthly terms.

 

It’s important to remember that it tries to address the fact that many people work differently. Work styles don’t evolve per generation, but per person – some enjoy working in the small hours of the morning, before dawn, in a space entirely their own, with no noise to distract them save for the tapping of their own fingers.

 

Paid Networking

 

One of the primary benefits of coworking is the melding of ideas – and in a sense, it’s worth it to come back to that, and explore the benefits of networking with professionals in entirely different fields, despite the superficial lack of overlap.

 

As our ideas for the working conditions of the future continue to evolve in the face of ever-more sophisticated automation and machine learning, and the eventual reality of AI in the workplace, we must realize that career fluidity often trumps specialization.

 

The worker of the future will have to educate themselves on more than a single kind of work, especially when trying to develop products to sell and market. Shared workspace enables a unique form of socialization that benefits:

 

• Writers
• Coders
• Accountants
• Artists
• Marketers
• Executives

 

Of course, that might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Creatives often struggle to work out of a traditional office but still need a healthy separation between home and work – and these spaces market themselves as the perfect place for individuals to seek a place of productivity.

 

A Rapidly Growing Industry

 

There’s no doubt that this trend will continue to thrive in developing and developed countries alike, as it becomes more expensive and more time-consuming to move workers to dedicated office spaces.

 

For startups, satellite offices, freelancers, and established companies alike, coworking will continue to play a role as a place for the free exchange of ideas, a melting pot of work styles, and a hub for creativity and productivity to flourish as everyone seeks their own ideal space.

 

Recent stats report that the number of people working in flexible spaces is expected to rise to 3.8 million in 2020, up from under half that (1.6 million) in 2017.

 

More spaces will be built to accommodate the expected growth, and although the traditional office model won’t go anywhere anytime soon, it’s not expected to come out unscathed – there’s plenty to learn from the benefits of coworking, even in regular offices.

 

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