The days of being restricted to a desk every weekday between 9am – 5pm seem to be on the way out, with a cultural shift over the last decades highlighting how flexibility offers benefits to businesses and professionals alike.
As a society, we’re moving towards embracing flexible work, creating hybrid work patterns and styles that are more distributed, flexible, and collaborative.
The push towards flexible work
Flexible work has long been a quiet movement, largely made of individuals extolling the values of being able to choose where, when, how, and with whom we work.
A strong result of this movement is the growth in coworking spaces around the world, with businesses like Hub Australia meeting rising demand for collaborative workspaces, flexible terms, and premium locations, for both teams and individuals.
Read more: How Hybrid Work Can Help Your Business
The positives for employees and teams
Flexible work options have been shown to increase employee happiness, helping create a more engaged and productive team. During 2020’s COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent ‘lockdowns’, many companies adapted swiftly to remote work. With Australia’s returning normalcy, businesses are now working to create a mix of hybrid work solutions for their teams.
The benefits for businesses
Businesses that prioritise flexible work options have long cited the practice as key to their attraction and retention of the best talent for their teams, allowing them to prioritise work/life balance, varied workstyles, and accessibility.
As the competition for talent continues to grow, companies that embrace flexible and hybrid work are better positioned to retain and attract the best talent.
Flexible work arrangements also allow businesses to save considerably on real estate and office space – gone are the days of each business needing to lease their own office, fit it out, and find a new one when they outgrow it.
The growth of flexible office spaces across Australia allows businesses to pay for only the space they need, add new space as they grow, and offers the ability to have shared desks with custom packages and arrangements across multiple locations.
The thriving coworking industry offers shared workplaces used by freelancers, entrepreneurs, and small and large businesses, accessed through monthly memberships and agreements covering all fitout costs, utilities, and experiential extras.
Connectivity and experiences changing the workday
Going into the office has become a choice for many – technology and the internet provide us with the tools required to work anywhere we choose, meaning the daily experience of the office is more of a priority than ever.
For a centralised workplace to attract staff into coming in regularly, it needs to offer opportunities to connect, learn, and collaborate in real-time.
Coworking spaces are required to adapt to the needs of their members, evolving to provide high-quality workplace experiences for every member with benefits, amenities, events, and high-value daily experiences.
With the competition for talent getting more fierce, those businesses that commit to offering an amazing flexible experience will be a step above the rest when it comes to building the best team.
