What The Corporate World Can Learn From Coworking

Today on WorkDesign.com Liz Elam discuses coworking’s secret sauce. Highlights are below, you can read the whole article here.

Here are four ways coworking can help, whether a corporation is looking to make coworking an option to their employees, or to integrate some of coworking’s secret sauce into their own workplace:

• Proximity – When you work in isolation at home or in a coffee shop, you don’t interact with others around you. In coworking spaces you work around other people who can inspire you, challenge you, and sometimes even teach you something. Not ready to let employees off the leash just yet? Then try creating an open work area in your existing space and don’t assign space to people based on their jobs. Let them choose where they want to sit.
• Nuanced open plans – For an open plan to work you need to consider both the extroverts and introverts in your organization. No matter how extroverted, people may need some private space to take a breather. You will need space for breakout meetings. You will need space for people to take phone calls. You will likely need some professional help with sound engineering. You should incorporate desk space, lounge space, and collaborative space into your open space—this is part of the appeal of many well-considered coworking spaces.
• Flexible furniture – Interested in boosting creativity? Then switch things up. Being stagnant is just that: stagnant. Change-up the furniture arrangement. Buy flexible furniture on wheels that can be used for sitting or standing.  Bring in lounge furniture that is comfortable and easy to move. People find it boring to come to the same layout everyday. If you’re not ready to implement furniture movement, move the smaller objects in the space around. The flowers don’t always need to reside on that table because they’ve always been there.  Think outside the box—literally.
• Community management – You can give the space the right “look” or adopt an open layout, but if you don’t have someone actively managing the space and community it will only ever be a good looking space. You need a human that can facilitate events, curate space management and keep things fresh. Humans are the secret sauce of coworking. Coworking spaces get this: most of them have community managers. People need help connecting and need to be heard. Your community manager can make that happen. In our disconnected, device-driven world having a space where people can find a respite from their hectic lives and get actual work done in an inspiring space is priceless.

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