- What is a Coworking Space?
- Key Benefits of Coworking Spaces
- What Makes a Good Coworking Space Provider?
- Why Choose Alliance Virtual Offices for Coworking?
Q: What Is Coworking Space?
A: Coworking spaces are shared workspaces where individuals from different companies work together in a communal setting, typically with access to various amenities such as Wi-Fi, kitchen facilities, administrative services, meeting rooms, and private offices.
On August 9, businesses and professionals from all around the world celebrated the National Coworking Day. Since 2010, this celebration has been a constant reminder of the revolutionary impact of coworking spaces in redefining work flexibility, creativity, community, and the overall approach to work.
As more remote hybrid work schedules are becoming more popular and commonplace in the U.S., coworking spaces are also seeing a wider adoption, particularly since the pandemic.
From small businesses to entrepreneurs, startups, freelancers, and consultants in numerous industries, there seems to be an endless list of professionals leveraging coworking spaces to enhance remote work productivity.
With about 80% of U.S. companies now offering some sort of hybrid work, coworking spaces and virtual office solutions have proven to be the ultimate facilitator of a seamless transition from in-office work to various forms of remote work.
Given the relentlessly increasing demand for flexible workspace solutions, it makes sense that coworking spaces are popping up around you even as office leases seem to be dropping in value. This is all thanks to the commensurate influx of coworking space providers in the industry.
You see, the rise in the popularity of coworking spaces isn’t some passing trend but a clear indication of their great utility in streamlining modern work.
Coworking for small businesses and professionals is marked by higher levels of work flexibility while throwing in the additional incentive of professional networking and community building. It empowers businesses to broaden their horizons and tap into the unlimited benefits of meaningful collaborations, partnerships, and skill sharing.
As someone who’s on the sidelines witnessing all these, there are a few questions to ask:
What is coworking space? What are the coworking space benefits attracting businesses and professionals to this concept? What are the hallmarks of the best coworking spaces and coworking space providers? And why does Alliance Virtual Offices often pop up in conversations about coworking spaces?
Sit back as we dive into each of these questions.
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What Is a Coworking Space?
Quickly dissecting “coworking” into “co” and “working” gives a fundamental perspective of what a coworking space entails.
If you say it’s a space where professionals from different companies and backgrounds come to work together, you would indeed be right, but that doesn’t paint the full picture.
To put it concisely, coworking spaces are shared workspaces where individuals from different companies work together in a communal setting, typically with access to various amenities such as Wi-Fi, kitchen facilities, administrative services, meeting rooms, and private offices.
Everything you would expect from a traditional office, from digital office equipment to utilities, is also found in the best coworking spaces.
As mentioned earlier, flexibility is a key driver of the popularity of coworking spaces, and it is visible in the coworking plans offered by reputable coworking space providers.
Types of Coworking Space Plans
Traditional office leases are restrictive in the sense that you get looped into a long-term commitment with lots of utility bills and other expenses.
With coworking spaces, you can walk in and rent a workstation for a day, use it to your fill, and walk out as freely as you came in—no contractual commitments pinning you down. At the very most, you sign up for monthly memberships, which you can opt out of to try other options or locations at the end of the month.
Above all, you can scale up or down at will, depending on your current needs, a level of flexibility that allows you to manage your resources and work schedules for better outcomes.
Below are some of the common types of memberships.
Hot Desking
A coworking practice that allows professionals to book and use a work desk in a workspace at any time of the day on business days. Hot desking is usually short-term and on-demand, as you can use any of the available workstations that best fit your needs or convenience at a given time.
This means you could use a different desk every day you visit the coworking space, allowing you to get work done while expanding your professional network by sharing the space with new people every day.
Dedicated Desks
Dedicated desks are quite the opposite of hot desks.
With this arrangement, you can book a workstation on a month-to-month basis, essentially having the workstation dedicated to you.
This membership also offers more privacy, as dedicated desks are usually situated in an office that accommodates 2-3 people.
Dedicated desks are a top choice in coworking for small business spaces, as business owners or employees from the same company can book dedicated desks in an office space to enhance collaboration.
In a similar manner, entrepreneurs and freelancing professionals tend to book dedicated desks with like-minded professionals in a shared office space.
Because the desks are yours for the month, you can customize them to fit your style and even store some of your documents or tools in the drawers overnight.
Private Offices
Any time the question “What is coworking space?” pops up in your mind, private offices probably don’t make the list of things you think about.
Interestingly, private office memberships are an integral part of professional, flexible workspace solutions.
If your job requires high concentration or frequent meetings with clients, you’d most likely prefer a private office to a hot desk or even a dedicated desk.
To that end, the best coworking spaces often offer tastefully furnished private offices that you can book by the hour, by the day, or by any other suitable arrangement you reach with the coworking space provider.
Private offices are undoubtedly the best option for professionals who are keen on privacy and a distraction-free work environment.
Day Passes
This is not so much a membership option as it is an ideal flexible workspace solution. With this coworking plan, you only pay for and use the coworking space on the days you feel like getting work done in a professional work environment.
You walk in, pay for a space, use it, finish up, pack, and leave. If you need a workstation two days later, you walk in and repeat the cycle.
You don’t have to pay for a monthly membership when you’d probably only need a space for two days throughout the month.
The flexibility across all these coworking plans is what makes coworking spaces so desirable to various businesses (including small-, medium-, and large-scale businesses), freelancers, entrepreneurs, and remote workers.
Forbes puts it best, “Coworking spaces are melting pots where startups, entrepreneurs, and investors converge.”
From solopreneurs and small businesses to global corporations like Microsoft, Meta, and even Apple, workspaces are a great fit for professionals from all work backgrounds.
Key Benefits of Coworking Spaces
Coworking space benefits are entrenched in the ideals that have backed the concept of coworking spaces from the onset.
Think flexibility, productivity, cost-savings, and networking. From the Berlin Hackerspace of 1995 to the formalization of the coworking movement in the U.S. by Brad Neuberg in 2005, these ideals have remained consistent in professionally managed workspaces to date.
These coworking space benefits outline some of the primary reasons workspaces have become so popular.
To fully maximize your workspace, consider consolidating it with a virtual office premium plus plan. This plan comes with a prestigious business address for business registration and other documentation while also offering up to 16 hours of meeting room or private office access, monthly.
What Makes a Good Coworking Space Provider
Below are some crucial features you should look for when choosing a professional workspace.
Location and Accessibility
If your work involves meetings with investors, clients, partners, or teams, you should be targeting workspaces located in prime business districts. These districts are usually centrally located for easy access from any part of the city, making it easy for you to secure meetings with important clients.
If you work alone all the time, it might make sense to simply go for the nearest coworking space, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it would be the best for you.
You still have to consider if it’s the kind of workspace that attracts like-minded professionals. Will people go out of their way to meet you there?
Amenities and Services
Think high-speed internet, comfortable workstations, meeting rooms, private offices, printers, copiers, kitchen facilities, common areas, parking space, and professional staff for administrative support.
It might be tempting to overlook some of these provisions, but you’ll feel the pain of their absence if you choose a coworking space provider that doesn’t care much about making them available.
Some of the best coworking space providers offer these amenities and even more.
Community and Culture
As a business owner and professional, you probably understand and acknowledge how meeting the right person can quickly take your business to unprecedented heights.
This is where coworking spaces come in.
Right from conception, coworking spaces have never been all about work; they are also about learning, networking, and growing.
The best coworking spaces are ones with clearly vibrant and supportive communities, where you could meet professionals with shared interests—in and beyond your industry—willing to exchange ideas, skills, and business experiences that could guide you to more opportunities.
To ensure you are in a coworking space with a strong sense of community and culture, inquire about their networking events before signing up.
As mentioned earlier, reputable coworking space providers usually invite business incubators and accelerators to host networking events and workshops at their centers. These events provide ample avenues for new business opportunities, partnerships, and collaborations.
Professional Management
Minus the cost and long-term commitments, coworking spaces are like traditional office spaces in many ways, one of which is organization and orderliness, thanks to on-site administrative staff who are always available to manage the space, provide support, and ensure a clean and productive work environment.
On-site staff also help maintain a sense of professionalism, which you will find valuable when clients come around.
Do due diligence to ensure that you are not going for a free-for-all workspace where anything goes due to the lack of professional management.
Why Choose Alliance Virtual Offices for Coworking?
We could simply say that you should choose Alliance Virtual Offices because we are the best coworking space providers, but that oversimplifies what we do. And you probably wouldn’t want to just take our word for it, anyway.
It may be better to ask: why are thousands of startups and small businesses across the U.S. choosing Alliance Virtual Offices?
More importantly, how were we able to accumulate 90% positive reviews and testimonials from satisfied clients on Trustpilot and Consumer Affairs?
For nearly two decades, we have maintained a solid position as an industry leader in the U.S. market, providing virtual office and flexible workspace solutions for thousands of businesses and professionals across the country.
Our industry experience and leadership have birthed exclusive strategies that have helped us streamline our service delivery, ensuring that we are proactively doing everything right to satisfy our clients. Hence, Alliance Virtual Offices pop up every so often when people ask around for virtual offices and flexible workspace solutions.
The positive reviews and referrals further reinforce our position as a top-quality and highly reliable coworking space provider in the market.
And that’s simply our reality.
Like small business owners, entrepreneurs, remote workers, and freelancers before you, walking into any of our workspaces brings you right to the center of various coworking benefits, including:
- Comprehensive amenities: At Alliance Virtual Offices, we do not cut corners. Our coworking spaces have a wide range of standard amenities available in corporate offices, including high-speed internet, printing facilities, meeting rooms, kitchenettes, common areas, and professional administrative staff. The best part? You don’t have to pay extra for utilities!
- Professional community and networking opportunities: Alliance Virtual Offices works with various business incubators, accelerators, community managers, and investors. This enables us to regularly host impactful networking events, workshops, and seminars in our workspace centers across the country. Outside these events, we have measures in place to facilitate organic interactions and collaborations among our clients. The result? Our workspaces embody a vibrant and meaningful community of professionals, exchanging ideas, skills, expertise, and support, helping each other explore and birth new business opportunities.
Generally, these coworking space benefits offered by Alliance Virtual Offices are the reasons most of our clients use our services over and over again. The more of our clients you ask, the more you will find other personal benefits.
For you, it could be a lot more.
Coworking with Alliance Virtual Offices
Hopefully, you no longer have confusion about the concept of coworking spaces, and will do a lot better than most armchair experts in providing a relatable answer when a freelancer, founder, or business owner asks, “what is coworking space?”
As much as you are looking for a workspace where you can quickly get some work out of the way, it’s also important to acknowledge that going for a subpar service could lead to high levels of frustration and unproductivity.
Further Reading:
Technologies Powering Virtual Office Spaces
Empowering Independence: A Guide for the Modern Independent Business Owner
Maximizing Customer Value: A Guide to Customer Retention Analysis
Streamline Your Operations: Top Business Process Improvement Strategies for Success
Consider all the features that a good coworking space provides and the benefits of the coworking space discussed in this article as a guideline when choosing your coworking space.
Above all, don’t neglect the importance of going for a professionally managed workspace located in a prime business area that offers meaningful networking opportunities. This choice will do a lot more for your branding and business growth than you can probably imagine.
If you’re not sure where to start, you can always follow in the footsteps of other professionals and go with Alliance Virtual Offices to access the best coworking spaces right away.
With over 1,000 spaces across the country, Alliance Virtual Offices will provide various shared office spaces near you with flexible workspace solutions that meet your expectations.
