Most of us have daydreamed about how great working from home would be. When the pandemic hit and we were all forced to work from home we learned quickly after the novelty faded, there were some things we loved and some things we hated about the experience.
How did you feel about working remotely from home? Have you considered how flexible office spaces at Venture X might provide a better working environment for you or your team?
Remote Work During The Pandemic
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
The opening paragraph of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities sounds eerily like working from home during 2020. Yes, it was fun to hang around the house and spend more time with your family and pets in your sweats and pajamas.
The novelty of cooking meals and eating together as a family positively impacted many households. The planet itself benefitted from traffic all over the world decreasing to the point where we witnessed a relative slowing down in climate change.
Now, as some people are still working from home and will be for the foreseeable future, let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of remote working.
The Pros of Remote Working
Many people loved the freedom to wear whatever they wanted to in a Zoom meeting, as well as enjoying the monetary and time savings regarding their business attire and maintenance budgets.
In addition to saving money and time on business attire and commuting, some people benefitted from working at home because remote working:
- Simplified their childcare arrangements and saved money
- Was just the same for startups and small business owners who were already working from home
- Gave them more flex time in their schedules
- When they had the dedicated space and necessary technology it can be easier to work from home
- Proved to employers that remote working could be just as productive as going into an office
The Cons of Remote Working
On the other side of the remote working discussion, after working from home for a while, some people clearly needed to work anywhere except home.
Not that anyone missed making those long, sanity-questioning commutes into congested urban centers to work but most remote workers did miss the balance that separate workspaces and living spaces provided.
They found that remote working also involved:
- Many peripheral obligations that kept you from working
- Children and pets that interrupt Zoom meetings
- Internet connectivity issues
- Slow Internet speeds due to everyone working and going to school virtually
- Not enough office to comfortably go around with kids learning virtually in the same space
- Feeling isolated from the business world
- Feeling disconnected from your business community
Flexible Office Spaces Offer Solutions For Everyone
Now that the business world is reopening, many large companies are rethinking how and where employees can work to reduce overhead. This also includes trying to reconfigure their offices for social distancing and widen walkways and still accommodate workers.
Some companies have proposed hybrid schedules with some days in the office and some days remote to compensate for fewer desk spaces and to be able to safely socially-distance their workers. Some companies think all remote work will do, but the idea of a majority of employees working remotely from now on brings up a lot of questions.
In terms of technology, the idea of upgrading every remote worker’s home office seems like even more of a deal-breaker than deciding that everyone will return to work full-time in a central location in the near future.
Some businesses may be thinking of downsizing or even eliminating their physical footprint as work models become more mobile and people can work from almost anywhere.
Fortunately, while businesses are working it all out, flexible office spaces offer solutions for remote workers and restructuring businesses.
A Middle Ground That Benefits Everyone
Acting as a middle ground to benefit employers and employees, flexible office spaces offer a multitude of solutions for work arrangements. Joining several area flexible office spaces, temporarily or permanently, employers can provide environments remote workers require to do their best work.
Not only do remote workers get out of the house for the day, but they can also reduce their commuting times and commute-related stress by working at a local flexible office space a few days a week or several times a month. Humans are designed for spontaneous interaction.
Working among business professionals from other industries can inspire new ideas that can charge remote workers’ batteries and innovate your company culture. Networking in flexible office settings with other members can also expose your brand to more business potential.
Some large companies may take the initiative to rent flexible office spaces on a long-term basis for full-time workers instead of investing in regional offices.
With the turnkey opportunities at flexible coworking spaces, it just makes sense to join a local flexible private office and call it home for regional employees that work in the same geographic area.
Group Meetings Are A Natural Fixture
The variety of space sizes coworking spaces offer also affords large companies the ideal scenario for groups that need to meet in person. These may be brainstorming sessions that work better in person due to the nature of the creative process and the way ideas percolate in a group setting or training sessions that just don’t Zoom well.
Groups can meet in dedicated desk areas but if sensitive information is being discussed, private office spaces and meeting rooms are well-suited for groups.
Generally, meeting rooms are fully equipped with all the necessary audio-visual equipment to host meetings and include some participants who may be joining virtually.
Some Scenarios May Come Full Circle
Before the pandemic, larger companies wanting to get in on the inspiring, creative nature of coworking spaces and the communities they give rise to were making the move at the Enterprise level to the flexible office space model.
Taking over whole floors in buildings or anchoring an entire building as a flexible office space, large companies were getting into the game. Business forecasters thought that the pandemic would slow growth at the Enterprise level but as commercial spaces have opened up at reduced prices, due to businesses leaving or closing, we might see a rise in the companies buying different spaces to move into at the Enterprise level sooner than later.
This could mean that remote workers could go back into the office in a coworking space with the rest of the company and still benefit from the flexible office space energy and work model.
Venture X flexible office spaces feature handsomely designed, sophisticated open spaces that lend themselves to spacing shared desks further apart and accommodating social distancing measures in the style of upscale boutique hotel lobbies.
Group meetings in our upscale and fully equipped meeting rooms can be arranged through our on-site Community Managers at every location. And when travel resumes at full scale,
Venture X members will be happy to know they can work from any Venture X location in the world. Join us at Venture X, where flexibility is the name of the game and the future of workspace is now.
Contact us today to schedule a tour – we know you’ll love working here!
