Global hiring has opened up new doors for your workforce and your company. Rather than being limited to job seekers in one area, you can now bring in top employees from every corner of the globe. Your distributed workforce brings a diverse array of perspectives, experiences, and skill sets, helping your company innovate and find new solutions to age-old problems.
But unique team members from across the world also bring unique needs. One key difference between worldwide employees is where they prefer to work. While the COVID-19 pandemic helped many employees realize that they could stay productive without reporting to an office every day, not every employee wants to fully work from home, either.
Fortunately, there’s a middle ground that accommodates employees’ varying workplace preferences while also paying dividends for your company: coworking spaces. Read on to learn about:
- Who uses coworking spaces and why
- Five benefits to coworking spaces
- Key elements of a good coworking space
- One way to offer easy coworking access to your worldwide team
Who uses coworking spaces—and why?
Coworking spaces have skyrocketed in popularity over the last few years. While there were only 14 coworking spaces in the United States in 2014, there are now over 6,200—an astronomical increase.
It’s easy to understand the burst in demand. As remote work has become more prevalent, many companies have decentralized their hiring approach and given talent the freedom to decide where they work. No longer required to report to an office—or, in some cases, not even having an office available to report to—talent has turned to other options.
Coworking spaces offer talent a third space beyond the company office or kitchen table. They give employees the ability to work from anywhere in the world, regardless of whether their employer has a dedicated office there.
Considering the appeal of coworking spaces, it should come as no surprise that employees from around the globe use them.
As the global spread suggests, coworking spaces attract people everywhere. The users of coworking spaces are as varied and diverse as the countries they are from. While there is no “typical” coworking space user, let’s take a look at some demographic stats that help you understand who utilizes them.
Five benefits of coworking spaces for talent and employers
While the characteristics of coworking space users around the world may differ, one truth remains constant: Coworking spaces offer a host of benefits for both employees and their employers. Here are five ways that offering coworking spaces makes a difference for you and your distributed team.
1. Flexibility for talent
Giving talent access to coworking spaces means they can choose when and where they do their jobs. As a result, it affords them the flexibility and work-from-anywhere ability they prioritize more than ever.
Offering flexibility and work-from-anywhere ability helps you appeal to qualified job seekers while keeping your current workforce happy and loyal. In today’s competitive hiring landscape, coworking spaces give you a helpful edge when attracting and retaining top talent.
2. Boosted work-life balance
While employees want the flexibility to choose when and where they work, they also want to maintain their work-life balance. Turning off work can be a challenge when employees don’t attend an office, though. Without a dedicated workspace, many employees report that they have trouble separating work time from personal time. This leads to employees working longer hours and being at an increased risk of burnout.
By providing coworking spaces for your talent, you give them a place to focus solely on work so they can better manage their time and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
3. Improved productivity, anywhere
While talent wants the flexibility to work from anywhere, they also want tools and resources that help them do their best work. Providing access to coworking spaces gives them the ability to stay productive wherever they go.
Coworking spaces help you keep your workforce firing on all cylinders, so you can offer talent the flexibility they want without compromising productivity and work quality.
4. Socialization in an asynchronous world
When your teams are spread across the world, there’s a good chance (and a good reason) that they’re collaborating asynchronously. Asynchronous collaboration, which refers to working as a team without working at the same time or in the same place, brings many benefits. But it also can make talent miss face-to-face interaction with peers. Coworking spaces offer talent a much-needed opportunity to socialize while working from anywhere.
Offering coworking spaces means your talent can take advantage of all that distributed work has to offer without giving up the connection that comes from working with others.
5. Real estate savings
Imagine the costs required to set up and maintain offices everywhere you hire talent. Even if you focused on building headquarters only in several global hubs, the investment would be significant. Coworking spaces allow you to offer all the benefits of a modern office without taking on high real estate costs.
Whether you want to scale back on current global office costs or develop a network of state-of-the-art workspaces without investing significant capital, coworking spaces are a smart, low-commitment investment.
What makes a good coworking space?
While coworking spaces offer many benefits for you and your people, there’s one catch: You need to offer high-quality facilities that talent actually wants to use. If your coworking spaces don’t meet employees’ core needs, they won’t take advantage of them. Here are seven elements you should make sure your coworking spaces include.
Optimize office space for remote workers with Velocity Global
It’s easy to provide coworking spaces that talent loves when you work with the right partner. We’re here to help.
Velocity Global helps companies hire, pay, and support talent in more than 185 countries. We partner with premium flexible office space providers to offer your distributed talent access to over 10,000 on-demand coworking spaces in 120 countries. These state-of-the-art facilities provide talent with everything they need to maintain flexibility and stay productive, from a seamless booking process to premium office supplies.
Give your talent what they need to do their best work, wherever they are, so you can build your global workforce without building global infrastructure.
Get in touch to learn more about how we can help you offer industry-leading coworking spaces anywhere.
