Considering A Commercial Office Space For Rent? These 5 Tips Will Help You Get Started!

 

Much like searching for a home or an apartment, hunting for an office can be simultaneously exciting and overwhelming. Whether you’re selecting your first office, relocating all or part of your operations or expanding your portfolio, you have a lot to consider when it comes to leasing a commercial space.

The process can be complicated, and numerous factors could impact your final decision. However, being prepared can mitigate the stress of your search.

You might think it relatively easier to rent the first space that meets your needs. However, it’s best to take your time and have options for as long as possible, which may even look like rotating between a few short-term leases while you search for your perfect space.

Follow these tips below to simplify the process and ensure that you get the right space:

1. Understand What Your Business Needs – Now And For The Future

To make the process seamless and successful, take a pause and prep in advance of the search. This includes knowing how you will use your space, what amenities are desired and setting “price checkpoints” to prevent going over budget. Each office space will have different features, so it’s essential to rank priorities first.

You should also consider your trajectory and objectives for the near future to make sure a potential space can grow with your company. Before touring any spaces, ask yourself where you see the business in one, three and five years

2. Start Your Search Armed With Knowledge

To ensure that you are looking at spaces that align with your needs and you’re ready to evaluate them correctly, you need to go into the search process armed with knowledge. Start by analyzing your company’s current needs when it comes to commercial real estate.

Consult your management team for input and compile a list of priorities. Then, consider how your strategic plan may impact your future needs. You should also take the time to conduct market research in the area where you’ll be searching for an office, to know the process when it comes to rent and amenities.

3. Get the Most Out of Tours

When you’re touring an office, take the time to consider how the workspace and the building itself will reflect your brand. Put yourself in the shoes of both employees and customers to anticipate what their impressions will be.

Tour all the possible office options including shared workspaces or private offices in the building with a plan to visit more than once at different times of the day. Pay attention to smaller details like how easy it is to park and how crowded the elevators are during peak hours.

Finally, as you tour various spaces, you may notice your priorities and desires for an office space changing as well. Make a list of places you want to tour and carefully inspect each before making your final decision.

4. Flexibility As A Top Priority

Because no company can predict the future with 100% accuracy, you must leave space for some flexibility in your lease. If you choose to go for a long-term lease to get an edge during negotiations, make sure to check for options to help future-proof the agreement.

Additionally, you must also decide if you are looking to rent on a long- or short-term basis. In general, many office space providers may expect you to rent the space for one to three years and will provide you with a contract that asserts this.

If you are not willing to make that level of commitment, think ....read more

Coworking, Private Offices, Custom Built, Dedicated Desk, Hot Desk, Virtual Offices & Meeting Rooms

We are a growing community of inspired professionals who work in creative & innovative spaces. Our vibrant business ecosystem offers flexible office plans, seamless connectivity and security. We are a contemporary workspace, A playground for minds, a powerhouse for brands.

We are Workafella.

The Most Important Step For You To Take As An Emerging Entrepreneur Today!

 

The beginning of another year always brings in an air of hope. Especially so for emerging entrepreneurs because it represents the time to list down goals with the aim of blazing past them soon in the future. That time is here now, to fix your sight on a big goal – “Setting up a new workspace”.

That can no doubt sound intimidating but here’s where we need to take a step back. It’s about the careful, step by step due diligence of your needs and requirements, before you decide on your workspace.

Here are some essential tips to help you make the right decision:

1. The Nature And Culture Of Your Business:

The first consideration when looking for office space is the nature of your business. The ideal space should be large enough to accommodate all your employees and other operational work. For instance, there should be provisions for the storage of stock, materials, and anything else essential in your business’s function ability. On the other hand, if you’re not ready to take the leap to a larger space, you could even look at convenient shared office space options.

The ideal office space should also enable you and your employees to showcase the culture of your business. This shouldn’t be missed because the working environment plays a significant effect on the productivity and morale of your employees.

Get a workspace that motivates your staff to work harder and longer. Never play low on the image and reputation you intend to build your business when finalizing on your office space.

2. Value For Money

Evaluate the pricing of each space to ensure that you’re getting value for your money. Sometimes lease contracts have many costs hidden in fine print. Take time to read the lease document or you may miss those charges.

Calculate the total costs of moving your business to the new space, including the cost of renovations and installations. Space should be worth every penny that your business will spend on monthly rent charges. One thing that can reduce the hassle significantly is to opt for a comfortable plug and play office, which allows you to save valuable time.

Profitability always has to be the driving factor. Additionally, the price should be within your budget for rent and leasing charges.

3. Space Layout And Amenities

The office layout will determine if all the equipment and furniture that your startup needs will fit. While space may appear large enough, some furniture and equipment may not work depending on the layout. Appropriate lighting adds to the ambience as well.

You want to create a comfortable and safe working environment for your staff. The amenities present in the space can help you make a wise decision.

If you intend to meet most of your clients at the office, look for space with an accessible waiting area and access to a meeting room. Other important things like internet and telephone connections, parking facilities, and other amenities like a pantry and storage units also play in.

4. The Right Location

One of the reasons for choosing a physical location for your startup is to convey the right impression to your clients. People trust brands with physical locations. Its easier for them to meet the owners and seek information about the business.

The location of your office space determines the image you create to your potential and existing clients. While renting or leasing a space in prime locations is quite expensive for a startup, choosing such locations helps you build your brand image.

Your clients and staff too should have an easy time accessing...read more

Coworking, Private Offices, Custom Built, Dedicated Desk, Hot Desk, Virtual Offices & Meeting Rooms

We are a growing community of inspired professionals who work in creative & innovative spaces. Our vibrant business ecosystem offers flexible office plans, seamless connectivity and security. We are a contemporary workspace, A playground for minds, a powerhouse for brands.

We are Workafella.

Importance Of Having A Risk Management Strategy For Your Business In 2021

 Risk is the leading cause of uncertainty in any organization, and ignoring its constant presence in the business world does not make it any easier. Companies are now increasing their focus more to identifying risks preliminarily and handling them before it affects the business. Understanding the company’s exposure and practising risk management signals the first step toward a healthier business.

The importance of having a risk management strategy is illustrated below,

1. A Safe And Secure Work Environment For All Staff And Customers

Health and safety are critical parts of a risk manager’s role. They actively seek out problem areas in the organization and look for ways to address it. They use data analysis to identify loss and injury trends. They also implement strategies to prevent them from reoccurring.

This benefits employees in physical work environments. Such as, determining whether that shared office space you’ve taken up is risk-free and is otherwise convenient. It can also benefit office employees and those in similar positions in case of ergonomics.

A safer workspace is better for everyone, and risk management can positively impact it.

2. Increase The Stability Of Business Operations While Also Enabling Project Success:

No matter the department, risk managers can help employees succeed with their projects. Just as they assess risks and develop strategies to maximize organizational success, they do the same for individual projects.

Employees can reduce the likelihood and severity of potential project risks by identifying them early. If something does go wrong, there will already be an action plan in place to handle it. This helps employees prepare for the unexpected and maximize project outcomes.

3. Protect From Events That Are Detrimental To Both The Company And The Environment:

Consequently, many risks involve a reputation factor: something happens that causes the public to view the organization negatively. Reputational issues could impact individual employees as well, even if they weren’t involved.

A formal risk department dramatically decreases the likelihood of this fallout. When an incident inevitably does occur, a standard risk management program and the process quickly contains the event, lowers the chance of escalation, and gets into problem-solving mode.

Another element to factor in when building long term trust is having a furnished office space in a well reputed area. This plays a key role in building reputation and trust rather than someone who does not have a ready office space to go to.

4. Benefits culture:

It protects all involved people and assets from potential harm. A robust risk management culture is better for all parties: frontline employees, risk managers, executives, and decision-makers.

It creates a mindset of prevention and safety that permeates the organization and influences the actions of employees. It sets expectations of performance and sends a positive image to the public.

5. It Helps Establish The Organization’s Insurance Needs.

Decision-making is challenging, especially when making important choices that leave an enormous impact on future success. Risk management data and analytics guides.....read more

Coworking, Private Offices, Custom Built, Dedicated Desk, Hot Desk, Virtual Offices & Meeting Rooms

We are a growing community of inspired professionals who work in creative & innovative spaces. Our vibrant business ecosystem offers flexible office plans, seamless connectivity and security. We are a contemporary workspace, A playground for minds, a powerhouse for brands.

We are Workafella.

Does Your Company Encourage Creativity And Innovation?

 An inspiring workspace triggers creativity and innovation. Additionally, the more you encourage and support creative thinking at your company, the more it becomes an essential part of your company culture—and an attractive prospect for future employees who value individuality and welcome ideas from everyone.

Innovation is important because it instantly differentiates your products and services from those of your competitors. For customers and clients to choose your business, your offer needs to be distinct and valuable, and the only way to achieve this is through innovation. Innovation can present itself in the form of a collaborative plug and play workspace!

Creativity can help a company manage tasks better, improve staff performance and create quality products. It is also vital in fostering a likeable and aspirational brand image. With consumers now able to get a snapshot of what company life is like, businesses need to be able to depict their inner culture in a way that makes it seem appealing.

If you want happy, productive and prized members in your team, you need to start igniting their creativity to get them motivated. Given below are some tips to get started:

1. Have A Creative Environment:

First, create an environment that encourages creativity. Consider decorating one area of your office with some nice, bright colours. Designate that area to your employees, giving your team some sense of ownership. Or better still, work in spaces which are designed to stimulate creativity like an aesthetic coworking space!

2. Build Trust:

It’s tough to work in a stressful work environment, and even tougher to feel committed to an organization’s mission when you don’t feel supported. If people do not trust you or your organization, they are unlikely to use their creative ideas to drive your success.

By treating people fairly and acknowledging their perspectives, you can help people feel good about working with you, to have more loyalty toward you, and to genuinely care about innovating for your organization.

3. Have Fun While Working:

Allow your team to play. You can have coloured markers, flip charts, Lego, play dough, paint, music; anything that sparks the creative process during brainstorm sessions. If you are choosing a shared office space, breakout areas are a fantastic area to conduct some unwinding activities.

4. Encourage Collaboration:

A major benefit of collaboration is that people with different skills and knowledge can figure out creative ways to combine their assets in solving problems. Some of your team members may be better at identifying the problem.

Others may be skilled at determining which tools to use to address a problem, while others are best at communicating changes and attempting new solutions. Some might be the ones to build the solution! By constantly interacting and sharing information, it’s likely that your employees create something new and valuable.

5. Host Brainstorming Sessions:

Create a board where you have goals or strategies that your company is striving for and each week you can focus on one goal or problem to solve or work on. Following that conduct a fortnightly meeting at your coworking space where you can brainstorm around meeting that goal. This gives your team the right intention before entering your meeting.

6. Teamwork:

Consider giving your team some work in advance where you have one agenda for the meeting and they all have to contribute with one suggestion or solution to...read more

Coworking, Private Offices, Custom Built, Dedicated Desk, Hot Desk, Virtual Offices & Meeting Rooms

We are a growing community of inspired professionals who work in creative & innovative spaces. Our vibrant business ecosystem offers flexible office plans, seamless connectivity and security. We are a contemporary workspace, A playground for minds, a powerhouse for brands.

We are Workafella.

What Does Your Plan To Accelerate Business Growth In 2021 Look Like?

Global economy endured its most challenging recession yet in 74 years, as the COVID-19 virus pandemic upended lives and livelihoods. The recession was unprecedented in its geographic scope, the central role of services, and in the scale of policy responses.

While we can predict that this setback will stay with us long into the near future, effective treatment will be widely available to the general population by mid-2021, facilitating the gateway to a newly recovering economy.

Let’s look at several ways to help you ride this rising curve and reach those targets you’re aiming at.

1. Plan An Effective Business Growth strategy

Growth is fundamental to a business’ survival. That goes without a doubt. A solid growth strategy allows companies to expand their business. You can achieve growth by adding new locations, investing in customer acquisition, even something as simple as moving into a reputed shared office space to optimize your budget for other areas—a company’s industry and target market influences the growth strategies it will choose.

2. Be Specific About What You Want To Accomplish.

“Make more money” or “grow my business” are both admirable goals to have, although both are too generic. Achieving goals become even more challenging when you lack precision. A company vision statement describes where you want your company to go, but not how you’re going to get there.

It’s an idea that should stretch the imagination and provide inspiration. The best vision statements are short, easily understood, and are exciting. It motivates and challenges your employees to perform to their best.

3. Effective Communication With Employees

It is vital to the success of a business that the plan formulated is also accurately communicated.  All employees should be fully aware of what the project is, and most importantly, their role in it!

This open communication leads to an enhanced understanding; within the organization and externally. And it should be continuously reinforced by the business’s actions and behaviors. There is nothing worse than receiving mixed messages!

One way to encourage open communication lies in the infrastructural design itself. For example, intuitively designed coworking spaces that have open work culture facilitates free-flowing communication.

4. Empower proactive employees

Employees who perform exactly as their job description states or do only as instructed can maintain the status quo but do not help your growth. You need to empower employees to push through performance goals and raise their capacity to perform. This helps hone leadership qualities in them.

It is essential to recognize that planning a Growth strategy is NOT just about making more sales!

To maximize returns, all functions of your business must be working in tandem and fully coordinated. The opposite of the silo mentality we often hear about, where individuals, departments, or entire divisions work to achieve their own goals completely neglecting the bigger picture.

Hiring the right people for your company is undoubtedly your way to ensure fast growth.

If you have staff who know their job throughout and are ready to give their best to accomplishing targets, then no one can prevent you from hitting the bull’s eye. Particularly for small businesses looking to grow, having the right players in the team changes the entire dynamics.

5. Stay Adaptive And Flexible

If your company cannot quickly adapt to the changing market dynamics and shifting customer tastes, you’ll have difficulty keeping pace with your rivals. Worse, you’ll struggle to keep the customers you have – and will never have an opportunity to scale your business. Adaptation is key.... read more

Coworking, Private Offices, Custom Built, Dedicated Desk, Hot Desk, Virtual Offices & Meeting Rooms

We are a growing community of inspired professionals who work in creative & innovative spaces. Our vibrant business ecosystem offers flexible office plans, seamless connectivity and security. We are a contemporary workspace, A playground for minds, a powerhouse for brands.

We are Workafella.

Innovation At A Coworking Space vs. Efficiency At A Conventional Office Space

 

There is always a perpetual question between efficiency and innovation. Efficiency is measurable, while innovation is not. Being efficient requires effective planning of your working day. When choosing innovation, the flexibility to ideate and evolve comes above all systematic ways of working. 

This can often appear as a dilemma that employers and employees frequently deal with.

Or, is there even a right answer?

Given an option between a coworking space and an office work environment, which suits you better? Truthfully, there is no right answer – only an individual choice.

If you are a driven, independent worker with excellent time management skills and mastery over digital communication, coworking is likely an appealing proposition. If you like structure and order and feel more confident when interacting with your peers face-to-face, traditional office will likely suit you. However, if you are somewhere in-between, this is your opportunity to transition fluidly between the two.

The great thing about this type of workspace is that there is no longer a norm – only what works.

Let’s begin with understanding what we get with a coworking space.

Advantages of a coworking space:

 1. Lower Costs: With a coworking space, you have the benefit of having access to the infrastructure and business amenities you need at a much lower price. You also avoid typically paying rent like an office or being roped into a lease.

2. Collaboration And Networking: There is something powerful about being surrounded by smart, creative people. In a high-energy coworking space, you get the opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs and freelancers, reach out to them for advice, and learn from them.

3. Community: When you put a bunch of smart people together, a community develops. Natural camaraderie builds a sense of identity within a community of intelligent, like-minded people.

Cons of coworking spaces:

1. Can Become Slightly Expensive: While coworking spaces tend to be more affordable than traditional offices, they are still more costly than working at home or a coffee shop. But that cost can be offset by the value you get in return.

2. Crowded Areas: There are always plenty of people around at all times. While this presents a host of networking opportunities, for some it could be distracting.

3. Shared Branding: A reputed coworking space might bring the additional challenge of trying to keep your own individual branding efforts intact. While this is definitely not the case for larger companies, it might worry freelancers or smaller entrepreneurs.

4. Availability of Shared Spaces: You share resources and meeting rooms with other coworking members, so you might have to schedule your usage of those areas in advance for whenever you need them.

Let’s compare the same with conventional office spaces and see how they fare.

Advantages Of A Conventional Space:

1. A Professional Space: Having a traditional office space ensures you always have a separate physical space to meet with clients, have meetings, and work with employees.

2. Collaboration: An office location gives you the advantage of having a physical place for employees to meet and collaborate on ideas.

3. Complete Control Over The Office Environment: When you have a physical space, you have full control over your office environment. All employees have access to the same tools and resources. You’re also better able to mould your company culture and ensure your output is always high quality.

Disadvantages of A Conventional Space:

1. Burns A Huge Hole In Your Pocket: Traditional offices often come with long-term leases and even more expensive pricing structures. There is no flexibility and impossible to maintain month on month for the emerging entrepreneurs.

2. Limited Networking Opportunities: There are little to no opportunities...read more 

Coworking, Private Offices, Custom Built, Dedicated Desk, Hot Desk, Virtual Offices & Meeting Rooms

We are a growing community of inspired professionals who work in creative & innovative spaces. Our vibrant business ecosystem offers flexible office plans, seamless connectivity and security. We are a contemporary workspace, A playground for minds, a powerhouse for brands.