Businesses embrace co-working space as a long-term strategy

The new coronavirus disease 2019  has created a significant shift in the way businesses operate, forcing them to swiftly adapt and rethink their protocols.   With fixed costs arising from real estate leases and expenses, businesses are now focused on maintaining operational and cost-efficiency.

Some if not most, have made flexible working spaces part of their long-term strategy.  By moving away from fixed workspace commitments, re-allocating budget to other key business priorities can help keep businesses afloat.

WeWork has identified four reasons why co-working spaces are a practical choice as companies recover and face the new normal:

1. Having a sense of community. Co-working spaces come with a built-in benefit of a diverse community. This opens up opportunities for employers to preserve company culture, employee integration and experience to drive productivity, motivation and connection.Maintaining collaboration between business groups and the government will be a key part of rebuilding our economy. Most enterprises, individuals included, find that shared spaces increase their commissions and connections, expand their business, create jobs, and stimulate the economy.
2. Empowering sustainable work arrangements. The shift to remote working during the pandemic has proved that there are alternative and flexible workspace arrangements to creating a productive work environment.This type of working scheme also brings questions of sustainability in the long run. Employers need to take into consideration employees’ work resources, productivity , and mental well-being. On the contrary, many leaders have addressed the importance of physical workspace: how in-person interaction matters for innovation, relationships, culture, and more.In this new normal, companies will continue to look at alternative workspaces. As distancing shapes the new work order, WeWork is able to partner with companies to deliver hybrid flexible workspace arrangements.

   Signing up for a co-working space or office can help address these concerns for your employees. Along with new demands of the workforce today, WeWork’s space provides your team with the needed essentials to increase efficiency and productivity.

3. Adding flexibility to businesses. Organizations to take a conservative approach when it comes to operational needs such as lease flexibility. In an increasingly fluid environment,  this gives enterprises of all sizes the ability to scale the amount of space dependent on their needs.WeWork for example enables businesses to scale three times faster than traditional options. By bringing agility to their portfolio with flexible terms and innovative deal structures, businesses have also saved up to 50 percent of committed costs.This also points to growing trends among larger enterprises, where many are quickly innovating their global real estate strategy and forging strong partnerships with flexible workspaces.
4. Supporting business continuity efforts. Business continuity plans are critical for riding out a crisis, specifically from a workspace perspective to instil confidence in business operations.The pandemic has reinforced physical workspaces as essential in times of disruptive events for continuity of business operations. Beyond fostering collaboration and productivity, a co-working space’s role is also to help its members drive business efficiency — offering flexible services, tools, and strategy that can help businesses be well-equipped and prepared for future crises.WeWork said enterprise accounted for more than 50 percent of its  core revenue for the first time in the second quarter of 2020, a reflection of how businesses have turned to flexible working spaces at this time of the pandemic.