Guide To Understand The Difference Between The Offerings, And How To Decide What To Choose For Yourself

Globally, the pandemic sped up remote work as the future of work. Since then, there has been an increased demand for untraditional office spaces. Coworking or work from anywhere is the toughest decision to make, for yourself or for your hybrid teams. So, how about I make it easier for you to understand the newer ways of working?

Here is a guide to help you understand –coworking, hot desk or open desk, private cabin, and meeting spaces.

What Is Coworking?

Oxford Languages explains the use of an office or other working environment by people who are self-employed or working for different employers, typically so as to share equipment, ideas, and knowledge.

So, The Next Question Arises, Who Uses These Coworking Space

Coworking has been in existence since the 1990s. Betahaus, Germany was the first official coworking space in the world. And over the period, the coworking spaces across the world have grown to 20000+ spaces.

ResearchAndMarkets.com’s states that the current coworking market is a $8.24 billion market in 2020 and the market will see growth to $11.52 billion in 2023 at the CAGR of 11.8% once the market returns from the economic slowdown due to the global pandemic.

Coworking Spaces For Freelancers

Freelancers and independent professionals have been using coworking spaces since the time of its establishment to network and in-person knowledge. Over the years, businesses & enterprises including start-ups and SMEs looking for budget spaces through short & medium-term commitments have adopted coworking. Since the pandemic, the remote workers and distributed teams across the globe and industries have made the massive switch and are promoting inspiring daily routines.

The Biggest Advantage Of Co-Working Spaces

• Office away from traditional office campus: The future of work may not be the office campuses in far-off locations or work from home, office spaces will be a walk away from home around your neighborhood courtesy of the coworking growth.
• Space to beat loneliness blues: Let us accept that last year has challenged our mental well-being. Humans are social animals, and our productivity is much better with interpersonal and in-person interactions. Finding a space to work with people to network and work alongside can boost your confidence and motivate change for the better.
• Flexibility: Permanent infrastructure or long-term office rentals have always proven to be expensive. Unless there is a compelling need, the coworking spaces should be the ideal option. Coworking or shared office spaces have gained colossal acceptance and are easily affordable & available.

How To Choose A Coworking Space

• Location: The key decision point while choosing your space of interest. Finding a coworking space nearest you is an ideal route than commuting for hours before arriving at your coworking location.
• Budget: It is great you want to co-work and find your productivity spot. But consider a cost that suits your financial plan. Arrive at a number that could be invested in investing your workspace
• Amenities: Each job, each project might demand a diverse work environment. So, choose your workspace as per your needs – work café, business environment, or informal coworking.

Hot Desk (Open Desk)

Hot desk is an open desk system – chair & desk that is available for rental per day/per monthly.  The trend of renting them is hot desking. This is one of the most trending coworking options, even the topmost corporates are vacating their overrated executive floors and renting Hot Desk as an office for the day.

Advantages Of Hot Desk Includes

Pay-as-you-use – Through day passes or by the hour, the hot desk helps you lower your cost for daily office workspaces. On average, a hot desk can be anything around $20 dollars for a day or INR 249/- per day inclusive of all basic amenities.

First-Cum-First-Served: Hot desks are on-demand or pre-book with micro terms commitment. So, use it till it’s dropped.

Flexibility: Hot desk works on a shared model, and there is no necessity for a long-term commitment. So, today you can be in one district tomorrow after another. The flexibility is amazing with hot desking.

Networking: with a wide-open work desk Hot Desk encourages in-person collaborations, interaction with like minds, and knowledge sharing that helps professional and personal growth.

Private Cabins

From swinging as a work pod to supportive as a mini team workstation, the private cabins at coworking spaces are a hit with individual and small teams who are looking to conduct business in a closed environment.

Teams prefer private cabins and lately by anyone who is looking for a closed environment and privacy for businesses and personal reasons. It can range from one to 5-seats depending on the amenities.

Advantages Of Private Cabins Include

Privacy – Closed doors, focussed work, confidentiality, uninterrupted spaces are what private cabins are for. Be it for your internal discussion, client meeting, or interview sessions, they are the best bet in a coworking space.

Plug and Play office room: Ranging from 2 seats to 5 seaters private cabins are well-furnished plug and play office rooms.

Advance booking: Obviously, we need to book in advance as these are fast-moving workspaces but limited resources. So ideally, it should be pre-booked.

High-priced: Private cabin for day passes may not be as cheap as a hot desk. The day pass for private cabins is reasonable, yet check with your coworking space before committing to the number, particularly if you are a single person.

Meeting Spaces

Meeting Rooms and Conference spaces have turned out to be great collaborative workspaces. In the hybrid work model, meeting rooms in coworking spaces have transformed to be great alternatives. From small to large size, meeting rooms are now being booked by teams to support in-person discussions or digital conferences.

Advantages Of Meeting Rooms Include

Large & convenient: The meeting room has a vibe of its own. It drives the culture of the team. In coworking spaces, meeting rooms are well-built to suit small to large teams. And can be adjusted to a suitable layout and accommodate large capacity.

In-person collaboration: At some point, every team needs to motivate and have a sense of inclusion. In-person collaboration helps with building that emotion. These meetings in these vibrant environments can be amazingly effective and productive goal achievers.

Amenities & Technology: Digitally and virtually, we have become stronger than in the past. But sometimes, we need professional and larger equipment, gadgets, and spaces to organize meets. Meeting rooms at coworking spaces comes fully equipped with the best infrastructure.

Doubling up: From being space for internal discussions to organizing ice-breaking sessions to training camps,  meeting rooms can double up to fit all teams and requirements.

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