How will COVID-19 change Co-working and Working From Home?
Nick Kent • Apr 17, 2020
How the COVID-19 virus will change co-working and working from home..
After 3+ weeks of working from home in and around Farnham, we are curious how the workplace will change once the brakes are lifted in Surrey and people start to return to work.
Things for sure will have changed in that even the most traditional leaders and managers must have changed their view on how productive their team can be working from home. I for one have found some aspects truly challenging (the locked in a room syndrome and the lack of human intervention), but equally there are aspects that I have enjoyed (eating with the family at a reasonable hour, not commuting, walking the dog for your screen-break) and sometimes productivity has shot up (ability to really focus etc).
Will the Workplace return to normality after COVID-19?
A lot will depend on the culture of your employer, or indeed your own work culture if you are a freelancer or sole-employee. I read a fascinating blog by Farnham coach Beth Hood on what and how in remote working and the importance of a low-trust v high-trust working culture. That aside we are for sure certain that employers will change their attitude, even for the more traditional vocations.
Sky News today published an article stating "only 9% of Britons want life to return to 'normal' once lockdown is over" and a large part of this is our worktime (lets say 80% of our year !). So for an employer side and an employee side change to how we work is coming 100%.
How does this change coworking and working from home?
As local Farnham industry expert Zoe Ellis Moore pointed out, companies providing serviced office space are experiencing a huge upsurge in demand in the last weeks from people who are finding it too hard to work from home, enhanced by children off school, too many distractions, a crowded house or simply not enough work space in the house.
Enquiries have soared by 30%+ for one leading international coworking provider, while another of the world’s biggest players is reporting the same 30 per cent rise in the number of customers worldwide wanting to work for just three hours a day in a serviced office, and the rest of the day working from home.
“Some of them have children at home, or connectivity with the internet or mobiles isn’t reliable, or they might be living in a shared home and finding the conditions too hard to work in. People are now asking for all sorts of deals, from someone who wants to work in a serviced office 10 days in the month, to a group of bankers wanting to pay out of their own pockets for offices to work out of.”
What about Health & Safety and Coworking?
Zoe's recent blog reminds us the importance of low-density co-working venues, something we focussed on when designing TheSpace our latest coworking venue in Farnham, Surrey. Low density coworking venues will win over from a H&S perspective, on top of those investing in product such as
foot handles and hand hygiene stations.
Advantages of Coworking over Working from Home
- Human interaction without the commute
- Ability to separate home from work
- Reliable internet, printers, scanners
- Increases in productivity
Joining a co-working venue here in Farnham puts an end to the frustrations of working from home.
Learn about our Virtual Office service in Farnham. A Farnham virtual office address and service designed for small businesses, freelancers or solopreneurs who can benefit from separating their home from work address. Having your business registered at your accountants or worse at your home is often the default position for many small businesses, freelancers or even solopreneurs. Although convenient, this has some disadvantages, and we offer Virtual Office service in addition to our coworking or workspace options here in Farnham. Postal Service (either scan, forward or collect) Corporate professional address in Farnham for your business correspondence Maintain separation of your home address and your business
Different coworking venues have different pricing models, but we like to keep our offering very simple and more importantly flexible for our coworking members. We have designed our latest venue here in Farnham to be a members only "club", to give an added sense of community between our members, all of which are local or working in the area who get to know each other, swap ideas and networks and give that sense of community. Most of our members have the facility to work from home, but prefer what we can offer them in terms of a productive environment and that separation of work from home again.
We often get asked who uses our new Coworking or Shared Office venue in Farnham, and this is a difficult question to answer as we have broad profile of users.. from commuters where working from home isn't ideal, through to productive members that can simply benefit from a change of scene, we have a wide range of professionals that are members here at The Space in Farnham. What our coworking members all share in common is the desire for an office to work in Farnham, be inspired and separate home from work again...
We’ve covered eight of the main benefits of coworking spaces, from flexibility to networking opportunities. Find out what you’re missing out on here.
What our Coworking Members in Farnham think of our coworking or hotdesk office in Farnham, Surrey
The Space was already designed in January to be a low density coworking or workspace in Farnham, we only have desks for up to 15 hotdesks in our centre across 2 floors in our charming centre on East Street. The historic building has vaulted ceilings, huge sash windows and oozes character right in the centre of Farnham so is already light, airy and has the feeling of space. So when Covid arrived we were lucky as we didn’t have to make many changes. What we did do was half the number of desks for our co-working members and do all the necessary sanitisation precautions that have now become the norm with Covid and the return to work.
As the lockdown eases, we have already made precautions to make our coworking venue in Farnham, The Space, covid-secure. All to allow our members to benefit from a productive place to work in Farnham: 🌱 Only taking bookings for every other desk 🌱 Sanitisation stations 🌱 Hygienic Handles on doors that can't be removed 🌱 Daily deep cleans
There are multiple benefits to you and your business of using a productive Coworking or Hotdesk Venue, some are obvious, some are less obvious... find out more....
As well as our diverse network of professionals utilising The Space, our members benefit from a growing list of discounts from local businesses in Farnham, Surrey. Here is our starting list, and we promise you this list will grow.... thats our job...
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Find us:The Space Coworking21 East StreetFarnham, SurreyGU9 7SD
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What Our Members Think
The Space Coworking Farnham is part of the Kents Property portfolio.