Why co-working is better than working from home.

When we run a small business, probably we have two options that the team can work from home or we can rent a co-working space. In eTribe I have seen many small companies which have noticed significantly positive improvements after they moved to co-working space. With this article, I will try to pen down the summary of my conversation with several small businesses about the change they observe after they moved to the co-working space.

Team communication improved 

When a team, work from the same location, it's easy to communicate. I love email but keeping everybody in the loop all the time is not easy and sometimes its take lot of time to reach a decision. In the case your team works from the same location, most of the things can be communicate manually, just gather the team in the meeting room and tell them, this has one additional benefit, you get the response at the same time and it matters if you are looking for cues to take final decision on something.

Team dynamics improved 

Working from the same location provide many opportunities for the team to interact and coordinate, like people meet over lunch, during coffee and if something is stuck, one can get hold of the concerned person quickly. Being around all the time and seeing what they working on create bonds between team members and help companies to retain them.

Change in perspective 

The various teams work out of a co-working space and they happen to interact with each other on daily basis, this gives the opportunity to understand each other's businesses and how they perform various business operations. Knowing new way of doing the same thing changes our perspective and make us see our business from other people's perspective, this could ignite new idea and new ways of doing business.

Productivity increased 

This is my personal favorite, I heard it form many many co-workers that their productivity has increased a lot, in some cases more than 2 fold. It's not easy to work from home at daytime, when you stay at home, you are kind of considered as available for chores and errands, like you may have to handle kids or need to get something repaired or need to receive a courier, this list is endless. Moreover working out from home for a long time may makes one less active.

New ideas and brainstorming 

Being around the team gives the opportunities to brainstorm formally and informally.  If you stuck in a problem, get hold of your team and brainstorm and I am sure you get lots of ideas to solve the problem. Working with the people having diverse knowledge, like in co-working gives you the opportunity to get a perspective from someone who is not from your field, his feedback might be completely different and may help you to improve your service/product.

After talking to many companies, I give this advice to small  businesses that they move their team/teams to a co-located office, if they have multiple teams, an independent office would also be suitable but if they have a small team, they should move to a co-working space which will give the team, an environment required to perform up to their potential and also get benefited from the interactions with people from diverse fields, which is available only to people who work in big companies.

- Samar