19 Dec Why a Co-Working Space is Better Than Working from Home?

At the first glance, working from home sounds like an interesting and exciting opportunity. You look forward to getting up at your schedule and starting your day whenever you want. After all, home is the only place where working in PJs is acceptable.

However, as this habit seeps into your daily routine, the thought of working from homes becomes less exciting and more stressful. Working from home, with time, and in some instances, becomes unfeasible, especially if your role is more practical.

However, with the advent of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) at start of 2020, this statement became untrue. As the year began, most of our works shifted to homes, but an increasing amount of evidence suggests that working from home may not be that blissful, as it hampers creativity and innovative thinking.

According to Forbes, several managers from the Fortune 500 reported that their employees’ innovative thinking decreased a whopping 16%, from 56% in 2019 to 40% in 2020.

Why? You may wonder. It’s because

• Homes are distracting and can be noisy
• They often lack office furniture and adequate office equipment
• At times, power supply can be unpredictable

In this post, we will explore several reasons that make the argument than a coworking space is better than working from home. So, let’s move on…

1. A Coworking Space Has Less Distractions

Working from home means that there will be a thousand and one distractions that will hinder your progress and decrease your productivity. And things often take a turn for the worse if you are a family person.

There’s a strong chance that your children will make noises, play around you, make a mess, and do pretty much everything and anything that distracts you from work.

If you have a pet or someone in your home owns a pet, they too, can prove to be distracting. Pets often snuggle or beg for food when you’re most busy doing your work.

Also, at home, bill ringing and telephone ringing can often be distracting too.

At a coworking space, however, you won’t have any of these distractions. You will be working in an extremely professional environment with like minded adults who are serious about getting their work done.

2. A Coworking Space Is Cheap

Working from home is free; you do not have to pay someone to use your home. Of course, if you live in a rented property, you pay the rent, but that’s not an additional cost. But working from home can be expensive in other ways.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit us, most of us did not have a workspace. Or most households do not (normally) have a designated workspace.

Thus, as our offices shifted, we were required (forced) to arrange for designated workspaces in our abodes. But a designated workspace doesn’t come cheap, purchasing office chairs and tables can put a dent on one’s pocket.

In addition, the electronic and digital infrastructure required to set-up and have an operational home office also doesn’t come cheap.

However, if you opt for a coworking space, you do not have to worry about spending a large portion of your income on office supplies, furniture, and internet. All you have to do is pay a nominal rent for using the coworking space and that too is extremely affordable.

Nor do you have to worry about paying exorbitant utility bills once after you build a makeshift office at your home. Additionally, COVID-19 has had a negative adverse effect on companies, big or small, so if companies wish to cut on costs, coworking spaces can be a good start.

Owning and maintaining office spaces isn’t cheap, but with co-working spaces, you don’t have to worry (or pay) about any of that.

3. Employees’ Network Grows

According to an article published on Business.com, working from home can be depressing and isolating, it can leave you feeling empty. So, balancing mental health when working from home can be tough, especially when you are all alone.

In addition, a formal work environment allows exchange of ideas and you get to interact with your peers, colleagues, and work friends, which not only help you establish personal friendships, but also strengthen your professional contact network. Working from home takes away the community experience that physical offices provide.

Coworking spaces have the power to mitigate the depression and isolation caused by working from home. You get to see people, meet peoples of diverse background, have a small pep talk with them, in essence, you get to be human with them.

Coworking spaces have an additional benefit for companies as well as employees; they allow you to connect with employees and executives of other companies, which increase your professional network.

4. Household Chores Decrease Productivity

As lockdowns were enforced in many parts of the word due to COVID-19, suddenly all of us had to adapt to new routines. Our homes became our offices, and children’s schools also closed, and their schools shifted to virtual learning.

As we slowly adapted to the new lifestyle, the household chores also took a burden on us. Children who once went to schools or daycare centers when their parents worked were now parents’ responsibility. Chores that were once done by house helps or nannies had to be attended by parents, and all of this had to be juggled with office responsibilities.

Also, as per a recent survey published on CNBC, the work from home routine suits men more than it suits women. The reason being that if men and women had formal jobs, women were expected and required to cook, clean, and loom after children, since daycare centers were closed, they could not send away their children for a few hours.

Thus, during working hours, they took far more and frequent breaks than their male counterparts and were required to compensate for the lose working hours by staying-up late at night, which became physically, mentally, and emotionally distressful.

In addition, in households where men equally shared household responsibilities, they too found that working from home became stressful and decreased their productivity.

However, with coworking spaces, you do not have to worry about spending your time doing household chores. In fact, some coworking facilities provide daycare facilities as well.

Conclusion

A coworking space has numerous benefits for an individual as well as a company. The latter benefits from working in a resolute, professional working environment, which is free from the hustle and bustle present in most houses.

While the former saves a ton on costs and has the benefit of interacting with a diverse group of people and companies and partnering with them to form new ventures.

If you’re hesitant about using a coworking space, its understandable, but before making your mind, try working in such an environment and see the difference.