As employers, we’ve seen an increase in the number of flexible workers, freelancers and lone-workers joining the workforce today. This increase has created a massive boost in the demand for shared working spaces.
These spaces promote independent or collaborative working from individuals or teams. While working alone has its advantages long periods of isolation can be detrimental to your mental well-being. Co-working spaces allow you to go in daily, sit at a desk and interact with like-minded people in a structured atmosphere.
Although these spaces provide many of the amenities of a traditional office, they’re more focused on designing spaces that encourage team-working and community sprite. Today, the self-employed dominate co-working spaces. A major attraction to these spaces is the cost effectiveness and flexibility.
Types of co-working spaces
There are four main types of co-working spaces. Depending on your work, you might find some of these better than the other.
Coffee shops and cafes:
The original form of co-working space was coffee shops. We’ve all been to Costa or Starbucks and noticed someone furiously typing away on their laptop. Once these companies realised this trend, they started offering more. Free Wi-Fi, free refills and more to encourage people to stay longer.
This trend did work for a while. But as the demand for dedicated working spaces grew, global co-working chains like we-work and Jelly entered the market.
Pay-as-you-go spaces:
These are community based spaces geared towards remote working. While they weren’t designed for this, they present the opportunity to interact and network with like-minded people.
Global co-working chains:
You can find these types of co-working spaces in major cities around the world. Created and designed to offer the ultimate co-working experience. A disadvantage these spaces is their focus on profits. This leads to hard-selling customers to commit to longer term contracts which defeats the whole purpose.
Independent co-working spaces:
These spaces are normally smaller than the global co-working chains. They’re targeted at smaller sized business and offer more varied services. Because these spaces are smaller, it’s easier to get to know the people around you.
5 benefits of co-working spaces
Flexibility:
A major advantage of co-working spaces is flexibility. Renting or buying an office building comes with its on limitations. You’ll have to worry about utility bills, infrastructure, long term leases and more. But, with co-working spaces, you wouldn’t have to worry about any of these. They allow you to rent spaces on a more flexible bases so you only pay for the duration needed.
Isolation:
Like we touched on earlier, loneliness plays a big role in mental well-being. Interaction is an important part of our daily life and shouldn’t be taken for granted. While co-working spaces encourage individual working, you’ll be around people with the same interests and lifestyle, making it easier to network.
Structure:
Co-working spaces offer a place to work that is lacking in the number of distractions available to you at home. When working from home, it’s easy to get distracted by the TV, pets, your bed, family members or even the mail. With these spaces, you’re able to keep your work life separate from your home like creating a healthy work-life balance.
Productivity:
Seeing people around you working hard on their businesses gives you the motivation to do the same. An office environment creates a mind-set that contributes to increasing productivity.
Networking:
Shared spaces puts you in contact with individuals relevant to your business. You can’t get this working alone. You could potentially connect with people at different levels of their career. This presents you with an opportunity to pick their mind or even to see your work from a different point of view.
Conclusion
It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or what city you live in. Co-working spaces are now available in every major city around the country. There’s no need to stay at home in isolation when you can be extra productive in an environment that encourages flexibility and connectives.