Cost-Effective Solutions: Scale Your Productivity With Flexible Office Spaces

What Is Flexible Office Space?

The concept of flexible office space encompasses diverse workspace arrangements that deviate from the conventional model of a single business occupying a single space. Instead, multiple businesses, individuals, and teams coexist in a spacious, communal setting. Such communal areas typically offer a variety of seating alternatives, which may include:

• Private offices
• Conference rooms
• Reserved desks
• Lounge areas

First-come, first-served desks (a.k.a. hot desks)

In theory, you may encounter organisations (or teams from firms) of various sizes within a flexible office space, from a gigantic, multinational corporation (who may own the space) to a solopreneur just getting started or a freelancer who doesn't want to work from home or the local coffee shop.

More titles will probably develop as the market for flexible office space expands, but they all speak to the same thing: a workplace where many different firms, teams, and individuals collaborate, sharing resources, information, and occasionally inspiration.

The Main Types Of Flexible Office Space

Coworking Spaces

Coworking is the use of an office space or other working environment by persons who are self-employed or work for various businesses to share equipment, ideas, and information.

Community areas, hot desks (available on a first-come, first-served basis), dedicated desks (i.e., reserved), private offices, conference and meeting rooms, private phone booths, and much more may be found at each coworking space.

Executive Suites

As the name implies, executive offices or suites have a layout with more offices than public spaces. This offers a more private and professional environment than coworking.
Executive suites may still include public lounge areas, shared technology and infrastructure, and other amenities such as coworking spaces, but the executive suite concept isolates business activity from people who are not employed by the organisation.

Incubators

These are workplaces meant to give companies and entrepreneurs additional tools, coaching, and early-stage finance.

Incubators can benefit from the seclusion inherent in the execute suite concept, or they can choose the more community-oriented coworking approach.

In either case, several organisations, individuals, and teams collaborate in close proximity to share resources and benefit from each other's drive.

Combination Spaces

Some flexible office spaces integrate all of the above concepts into a single, one-of-a-kind alternative.

You can benefit from the flexibility of working from a communal space, a private office, or a suite of private offices in these sorts of combination workplaces – all on a short-term basis to give maximum agility for your expanding firm.

BENEFITS OF FLEXIBLE OFFICE SPACE

Reduced Occupancy Costs

In today's market, the expense of acquiring, leasing, and outfitting your own office space is too expensive. This makes it prohibitively expensive for all but the largest corporations.

And whether you own the property or rent it, the benefits of flexible office space are soon manifested in lower occupancy expenses.

Sharing your space with other firms, teams, and individuals helps you remove resources that may have gone underutilised as an established business (i.e., empty offices).

Flexible office spaces allow you to operate from a beautiful, fully equipped workspace for a fraction of the expense of leasing your own facility.

Increased Agility

Whether your company is new or has been in operation for many years, growth and decline occur in cycles and might occur when you least expect it.

More staff are required to handle the workload during growth years. In other circumstances, you may need to trim your personnel in order to avoid wasting money that may be better spent elsewhere.

That is why your company must maintain some degree of agility. Using flexible office space allows you to be more agile.

No Long-Term Leases

A long-term lease might shackle your fledgling firm and cause financial problems later on. You may avoid this problem by taking advantage of the short-term leases offered by most flexible office locations.

A month-to-month arrangement, for example, can help you save money when the market falls, income falls, and your personnel needs are reduced. In some circumstances, you can save money by reducing the quantity of flexible office space you utilise.

A long-term lease locks you into a fixed payment that will not fluctuate as the market changes. It may be a major problem when circumstances are tough and you need to save money for other, more important obligations.

Protection From Market Volatility

As we've mentioned throughout this list, flexible office space provides a distinct benefit that other workspace solutions do not: protection from market instability.

Flexible office spaces may safeguard your firm from the ups and downs of your sector, whether it's underused square footage, the need for more or fewer team members, or just preserving funds for the next stage of development.

New Markets

Few things are more nerve-racking for a developing company than expanding into new geographic regions. Flexible office spaces may assist lessen the risk of establishing a new base of operations, whether it's a relocation across town or the nation.

If the extension is feasible, you can expand your workplace footprint as needed. If the expansion isn't feasible, you can return to your primary headquarters undamaged.
It is not possible with a long-term lease.

Creating A Flexible Office Space

Group Workstations Together

Most people imagine long tables of assigned workstations, similar to cubicles without walls when they think of flexible office space. Yet, this is not the most productive configuration.

Instead of row after row of workstations, form "pods" of two, three, or four desks.

This configuration reduces localised noise pollution, which can cause team members to lose attention, and gives some space between stations so employees don't feel like sardines in a can.

Keep High-Traffic Areas Clear

Keep high-traffic areas free while setting up your mobile office. You could be tempted to cram a few additional workstations into or near communal areas, but this is a bad idea.

Distractions abound in areas near restrooms, kitchens, breakrooms, elevators, and staircases, making it difficult to focus and be productive.

Keep those public areas clear and enable them to perform their job: handle the heavy traffic of a bustling workplace.

Establish A Quiet Place

When designing a flexible workplace, consider creating zones for certain sorts of work. The quiet zone is the most important of these zones.

Indeed, team cooperation is critical to the success of your firm. As a result, you'll need lots of room to accommodate those activities.

Equally crucial is offering a location for team members to go when they need to focus on a particular job and work alone. It is the purpose of the calm area.

Place the quiet place as far away from the "collaboration zone" as practicable. You may even go so far as to close it off to eliminate any noise and distraction.

Consider using tall plants, bookshelves, or other acoustic and visual interruptions to define the area between silence and cooperation.

Set Aside Space For Phone Calls

Few things are more disturbing than phone calls in a crowded office.

Workers who use a phone frequently speak loudly in order to be heard, even when it is not essential, and it is tough to stop that practice. All of that loud conversation might significantly annoy the other team members within hearing distance.

Set up some space for phone calls in the same way that you did for quiet work.

It doesn't have to be a large room — three or four covered booths work well — but even a little amount of space will help keep interruptions to a minimum and everyone working at their best.

Invest In Sound Dampening

When asked what the biggest distraction in an open workplace is, most respondents say noise.

Noise may bounce off of hard surfaces and intensify in a wide, open area, to the point that a pen falling from a desk onto a hard floor can sound like a branch breaking to someone on the opposite side of the room.

Try employing noise-cancelling techniques such as carpeting the floors and upholstering the furniture and ceilings with noise-cancelling materials.

Maximize Natural Lighting

Because flexible office space is, by definition, movable and adaptable, effective lighting is critical.

Members of the team must be able to see what they are doing regardless of where they are seated. And the ideal light for that purpose is the natural light that comes in via your workplace windows.

Bring In The Green

To infuse your office space with a softer, more organic ambience, nothing beats the addition of plants to your decor. This not only elevates the aesthetics of the area but also helps to boost employee morale and productivity, which can often be challenging to maintain over prolonged periods. Scientific studies have indicated that even a solitary plant in sight can enhance the productivity of teams, including those working in compact office spaces typical of startups and entrepreneurs. So, if you're seeking inspiration for incorporating greenery into your office design, consider placing a few plants on the windowsills or clustering them in a drab corner of the room.

Office Hub provides a comprehensive range of workspace solutions, catering to the needs of diverse individuals and organizations. Our offerings encompass coworking space, executive suites, dedicated desks, and incubator space, seamlessly integrated for your convenience. Whether you seek a secluded office, a suite of multiple chambers, or a flexible workspace, Office Hub has got you covered. Our avant-garde facilities cater to digital nomads, entrepreneurial visionaries, and corporate honchos alike, facilitating their professional pursuits with unparalleled ease and comfort. Join us at Office Hub, where every work style finds a niche to thrive!