Filed under: Social | Tags: Mobile Office, Shared Working Space, Virtual Office, Workplace
The question is becoming, where don’t you want to work today? With a big shift in the structure of the working world, virtual offices, shared workspaces and the home office are quickly progressing as the way to do business. With growth in telecommuting already forcing airlines to appeal to businesses travelers, and the self employed getting tired of the coffee shop office, the trend will only continue with the increase in self employed climbing.
“A growing number of workers face these hassles every day. As of November 2009, there were nine million self-employed workers in the U.S., according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Meanwhile, the volume of workers telecommuting at least once a month for employers grew 17% between 2006 and 2008, to 33.7 million workers, according to WorldatWork, a human-resources research firm in Scottsdale, Ariz.”
A recent conference in London asked if we even needed an office these days. Richard Leyland, inventor of WorkSnug, an iPhone application for finding workplaces in a city, reported the following,
“What would happen if a large multi-national company, which I’ll call Company X, sold its real estate, dished out laptops and went completely mobile? Their new offices would be at homes and in connected ‘third places’, all around the city or town.
I’m only talking about knowledge workers here: those whose work could be done with a laptop and phone. If a worker actually makes something, it’s a fair bet Starbucks isn’t the ideal place to do it.’
You can find co-working spaces in many major cities in the world, with one social enterprise The Hub, covering many of them. And as organizations continue to cut costs, you can bet the traditional office is on its way out.
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It’s true that traditional office space is rapidly declining – with so many more flexible, more cost effective options out there, who would choose to be locked into a long-term contract that requires a lot of overhead costs?
Perhaps the fastest growing alternative work solution is the virtual office. More and more SMBs are choosing virtual offices to have the support of a professional staff and the prestige of a good business address while working outside of an office. You can get a great local address and professional support (phone answering service, order taking, etc.) just about anywhere in the world.
Ruth
Comment by Ruth January 15, 2010 @ 2:55 amwwww.abcnvirtual.com