One thing COVID-19 is giving businesses, is a reality check. Is your business strong enough to survive a recession? Can you be smarter about your biggest single expense but also your biggest source of revenue– your team? Are you and your business flexible enough to service your client and keep your business afloat during this COVID-19 crisis?
While office space incurs a non-negligible cost, it usually pales into significance against your payroll.
Some business owners and employees are longing to get back into a physical office for motivation, collaboration and separation from home and all its distractions. Others are loving the longer hours available to them without travel time, and because of the nature of their work, can operate literally anywhere as long as there is an internet connection.
Serviced Offices and Virtual Offices are providing solutions for a whole new way of working in these uncertain times.
You may be in 100-200m2 of space but want to change the way you work when this is all over. You may shed your space and some employees will work more from home, but you will still need a professional base for your team to work and meet.
Even in the past we have seen business realising that they do not need a dedicated work station for each employee. Some large corporations have already adopted the 50/50 program so they could reduce their corporate office rent in a crowded city where long-term lease prices keep increasing. Half of the workforce will find a hot desk available in the office, and the other half can work from home, remotely in a café or in any environment they see fit. Serviced offices can bring a great alternative to fixed corporate office space and offer much more flexibility. Apart from the obvious and significant cost saving renting serviced offices have many benefits:
- Flexibility for your staff to work where they want, close to home
- Business opportunities with your workforce being spread across suburbs, closer to more customers
- Pay as you use facility, when you need them (no more paying full price for space only used a few hours a week)
- Fully furnished and fitted out (you don’t need to purchase any furniture)
- Most staffing costs that aren’t critical to your business are included (mail management, receptionist, cleaners)
Traditional leases are restrictive and setting up offices in them is expensive. In a Serviced Office your furniture is included. Of course you can bring your plants and personalise your office, but the cost of moving furniture into an office is hundreds of dollars. When you vacate, you may not even be able to sell it – you will hope someone takes it off your hands for free.
Work smarter not harder. Upscale or downsize in flexible serviced offices or bring the team together with a Virtual Office. This new world and its new way of working may be here indefinitely.
Serviced Offices are a perfect option not only to grow in but also to shrink in! Only pay for the space you need to use right now. Don’t hold onto space because you may employ someone in the future. You can better use the $150 per week elsewhere
But it is not all about corporations looking to downsize. Other businesses (like self-employed and sole traders) may be flourishing at home and don’t find the disadvantages unproductive enough to change. They will still need a Virtual Office – a landline number, commercial address for mail and deliveries and a central point to meet with their team weekly, or whenever necessary. Whether it is to look professional or even distance themselves from using their home as the front of their business.
You may already be in flexible space, have lost part of your business and need to drastically and immediately change your office overheads to stay in business.
Today avoiding the crowd and staying away from an open plan office full of workers is not only a smart move financially, it is also necessary to help the whole community win against the COVID-19 virus. With a private and safe serviced office, you and your team can still be productive, work at the office rather than juggle between home duties and work calls. The survival of businesses during this period will be down to business continuity and the capacity to adapt and overcome the impact we are seeing on the economy. Not being able to go to work, doesn’t mean you need to stop working. It just means you need to adapt your working environment.
If you have any questions and would like to speak to someone about an officespace that is right for you, CLICK HERE