The Top 10 Benefits of Flexible Office Space

The serviced office space market has come a long way since the days of the early adopters being sole traders and tech startups looking for cheap shared office spaces. Now, tenants come from government, construction, corporate, and finance sectors, all looking to access the benefits including:

1. Agile terms: Monthly, yearly, rolling

Terms range from monthly rolling agreements to 12 or 18 months. Ordinarily, the longer-duration agreements offer the best value with a larger range of discounts while still providing greater agility than traditional leases. However, in the midst of the pandemic shorter duration is getting even greater discounts of up to 40% off the sticker price per month.

Additionally, some operators are offering “Break Clauses” for tenants to walk away from a 12-month agreement after 6 months without penalty.

2. Facilities: Dedicated and all-inclusive or shared

Whether it's secure private printing without the overhead of maintaining a printer, meeting rooms on a pay-to-use basis, or being included as a private dedicated space within an office, there are a lot of choices. With whole floors on offer, there is secure and sole access by lift on offer, as well as private kitchen and bathroom facilities.

3. Balance sheet friendly: OpEx not CapEx

Almost every business will be coming out of the current crisis with a bruised balance sheet. It will be a complex time and many businesses will face uncertainty regarding operations, revenue and growth targets and the optimal size of the workforce to support recovery. Flexible workspaces are particularly appealing in these situations as they allow businesses to optimize their workspaces for changing circumstances.

4. Mitigating risk

As restrictions are eased there is a genuine risk that the population will face a second wave of COVID-19 infection, triggering another round of isolation. For businesses that had begun the migration of employees back to the office, the prospect of reverting back to work from home might create employee, financial and technological stresses. The use of serviced office space can help mitigate these problems as employers are able to take a more cautious, step-by-step approach distributed across multiple workplace ‘hubs’ rather than having the whole team back in corporate HQ.

5. Creating dynamic teams

As teams grow or shrink, their real estate needs change. The option to scale up or down minimizes the excess office capacity carried by businesses far better than in a traditional lease.

6. Minimising upfront costs

Serviced office space offers far lower capital hurdles and fewer liabilities than traditional leased space, freeing up the balance sheet, an especially attractive proposition in a post covid-19 recovery.

7. Reducing business uncertainty

During uncertain times, there is often reduced confidence in customer demand, in turn reducing confidence in budget targets. Within real estate, strategies for dealing with uncertainty include minimising lease terms, including break clauses in terms and allowing for growth or shrinking use of facilities.

Serviced office space is an excellent tool to tackle business uncertainty.

8. Remote satellite offices

The choice is not binary between employees either working from home or in a central head office. There are more options available to remote workers that can keep them safe and productive closer to home and without having to share public transport. For example, Rubberdesk has established satellite offices for corporate clients to co-locate employees from a particular suburb in premium offices that are on brand.

9. Project and tender team ready

When privacy and speed to market are crucial, we look for turnkey locations offering everything from dedicated meeting rooms, complete security from prying eyes, and even whole-floor spaces. Available as required, these spaces are fit-out and ready for project teams to start work immediately.

10. Business segregation and continuity planning

Until a vaccine is delivered for COVID-19, there's the very real prospect of businesses needing to split teams across sites to minimise contagion risk. Flex space is ideal, with high-quality cleaning procedures and private office spaces providing remote teams with a safe work environment.

11. Swing space (because 10 is not enough)

With construction delays and supply chain issues resulting from isolation measures, there are a number of projects where delivery has been postponed. Swing space can be put together for any duration and size of the team ranging from a few months to years and for 100s of employees at a time.

Begin your search for serviced office space today