Working during the pandemic hasn’t been easy for many individuals and startups. With imposed lockdowns and restricted movements, remote work made sense. Unfortunately, working from home has its fair share of challenges.
Thanks to the power of innovation, we are now witnessing a mushrooming of coworking spaces. These are shared working spaces fully stacked with office amenities such as printers, Wi-Fi, boardrooms, drinking water, kitchens, and anything you can think of.
Still not sure why you might need to rent a shared office space? No problem. Go through the following key benefits of coworking spaces before making the final decision.
Pros of Coworking spaces
Here are the reasons why coworking spaces may be a good idea:
1. Reducing anxiety and loneliness
Remote working is undoubtedly great. No hassles of commuting, you create your own work schedule and can get your house or compound in order.
Unfortunately, you’ll miss out on the little office banters, the frequent casual exchange between you and your colleagues, and work trips. Working from home is more of a solitary existence and can end in feeling lonely and anxious.
To combat anxiety and loneliness, one can opt to join a coworking space to keep that human connection going. If you are single, these temporary workspaces can also be strategic dating spots.
2. Networking opportunities
Many coworking spaces have boardrooms for hosting meetings. So every once in a while, these places will be flocked with people of different career backgrounds. Some of those might be related to what you do.
Taking part in networking events not only exposes you to new people to say ‘hi’ to for the next couple of days but could be the start of great interactions. You can run into new ideas, culture, and something or someone amazing that makes your existence less boring.
3. Professional environment to meet clients
You probably enjoy working from home a lot-especially if you rarely feel lonely and anxious. All your client meetings happen through Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and other conference tools. But suppose you had a presentation before a team of real people, would you invite them to your home? Or go to theirs?
While it’s possible, holding meetings at your place or that of a client is not entirely professional. The excellent thing is, you don’t have to rent an office that you will probably not need after that meeting. You could just rent out an office at a coworking facility to run your meeting from.
4. Improve productivity
Sometimes the best inspiration comes from switching environments. If you find your productivity jarred by the everyday same indoor experience, then exposing yourself to different visual stimuli could have amazing results.
If you reside in big cities with coworking facilities, take the opportunity to visit one. The first few days of acclimatizing will probably be challenging but eventually, you’ll find switching work environments to be just as good as rest itself.
5. Flexibility & affordability
With coworking spaces, you pay for what you need. There’s space for an individual, a team, and boardrooms for when someone needs to host a meeting. This kind of flexibility is appealing for startups that don’t have massive resources to pour into workplace facilities.
With proper arrangement, the flexibility offered by coworking facilities can eliminate the steep overhead costs of renting an office and buying essential amenities. This results in good use of initial investment capital.
6. A place to learn
Those little conversations that you make on passing with coworkers in coworking spaces can teach you a thing or two. If you meet a fellow graphic designer or social media marketer, they might point out a strategy that has been working well for them or where they are sourcing clients from. These are some of the things you miss out on when working alone.
7. Establishing a proper work-life balance
Truthfully, the line between work and life really gets blurry when working remotely. Psychologically, home is where you go to rest from work. Now imagine having to treat your home as a workplace; it can be confusing, right?
Interactive coworking spaces can help you establish a proper work-life balance. Firstly, they structure your day such that you have a place to clock in and out for work purposes. This means by the time you leave office, your work is done. You won’t be reading emails from bed and messing up your sleep schedule.
Many coworking spaces have workout facilities like gyms, exercise studios, and wellness rooms for yoga and meditation. Onsite showers are also provided for convenient post-workout cleaning. These assets can help you become fully productive, happy, and proud of yourself.
8. You can work while traveling
Coworking spaces are becoming hotspots for digital nomads. With their presence dotting every major city around the world, you can plug in and work from any location. While there, you’ll have access to all professional equipment like printers and Wi-Fi.
Even better, some facilities like WeWork offer multi-city memberships so you don’t have to worry about steep rates.
9. New business opportunities
Yes, you probably just want to join coworking spaces to interact with fellow humans. But judging from all our pasts, these connections are the same way we met our lovers, dependable friends, and workmates.
Similarly, interactions at coworking offices can result in new business opportunities that you never expected.
10. Working with like-minded professionals
Coworking spaces are full of individuals from different professional backgrounds. The person sitting next to you could be a graphic designer like yourself. When several of you meet, you’ll definitely be happy to belong to a community. You will no longer feel alone and unmotivated.
Cons of coworking spaces
There can be a lot of distractions in coworking spaces from people moving up and down to phones chiming. Think of it like a public or school library with people clearing throats, others coughing, and the unending click-clack of the keyboards.
Secondly, lack of privacy can be a big bummer for some people. The third strong con is perhaps making and receiving phone calls. If your job involves that, then you’ll be walking in and out of the office one too many times.
Wrap Up
Coworking spaces are gaining traction especially after the pandemic forced many companies to work remotely. The idea works for both single individuals and small teams.
Thanks to being fully equipped offices, coworking spaces can help you focus your business, improve productivity, and gain some sense of professionalism in what you do. However, be sure to know all the pros and cons before committing.
