As the CBD continues to be vacated due to public transport fears and lift/touch point disruptions, the city fringes and suburbs are becoming more attractive to the staff who can drive to the office.
Benefits for the employees at the moment could be the difference between your team working from home and losing productivity or their collaborative connections or both, and your team feeling “safe”, and working at their optimal.
Crows Nest has the benefit of being both a “Hub “ and a “Spoke”. Companies can save on rental costs for large commercial space and increase their flexibility by considering a serviced office for any number of their staff. In a serviced office you also have access to meeting rooms, a fully staffed front desk and Virtual services – mail address and phone answering.
Business uncertainty means you will also have flexible leasing options using a Serviced Office. There may be incentives to commit, but you don’t have to. Work out what you need to start, and look at more permanent options later. A month to month lease may work perfectly for you as you navigate your way through this pandemic.
If you have most of your team working from home and only have a small team working in a traditional office, in several locations, you will miss someone always being there to greet your clients, fill the coffee and biscuits, reset the meeting rooms and run downstairs with your coffee order. A serviced office has all these services and facilities and more. Whether you work 2 days, 3 or 5, the infrastructure of an office is there from day one for you – with 24/7 access.
For business owners, a commercial address is critical and at the end of the day, whatever measures retain your staff and keep your customers have to be considered.
Working from home seems like a dream come true at first and there is so much feedback regarding this. Suddenly its prudent to work from your spare bedroom, kitchen or loungeroom, in your uggies and is considered the safe and considered work option, but after several months, cracks start to appear. Teams may feel isolated, unsure of their job security and their value to the organisation.
Taking a Serviced office as either your Hub or your Spoke gives you a change of environment, inspiration and interaction with others if you want and need it. You can work in your safe private office but know you are a part of a larger group of business people, including the reception staff. You are not isolated in this environment. These are changing times and we wont know the “new normal” until some time in 2020. The freedom of a serviced office space means you may take space for 2 now, but upgrade to 4 in the new year. You only pay for the space you need when you need it, and there is no other type of office space that can give you this flexibility.
Meeting Rooms are also part of the Serviced Office model – and can be used whenever you need it without sacrificing or interrupting the function of your office space. These are fully equipped. A “Hub and Spoke” office model means your meetings can be at different locations according to the attendees and not just in the one location that has them.
Businesses who were in the CBD to give easy access to their clients, will also reconsider their location. A “Hub” that offers street, metered or parking stations will be preferable to your customers, suppliers and collaborators. Giving your employees street parking options or cheap “Early Bird” parking options near their office is also attractive. This is impossible in both the CBD and North Sydney where employees choose not to catch public transport due to COVID-19. Harbour views and the expense that goes with them are also being swapped for less luxurious offices further out of the city. Not only are there less employees in the office, but they are not now there the traditional 9-5, 5 days a week working model. Perhaps your customers who work from home also will not need to physically meet with you, and are happy to connect via Zoom, leaving you with more cost effective location choices for your space.
Either way, this newly defined “Hub and Spoke” office model is here to stay as Companies navigate their way through the next 12 months or more, restructure, analyse their business and its overheads, and most of all their team and how they can be a greater asset to them.
Challenging times indeed.