Your Ultimate Guide to Flexible Office Space

Here’s everything you need to know about flexible office solutions, from what types are available, to what’s included in the price and how long the contracts are. Plus, we’ve created a list of questions to help you decide the best fit for your business.

Modern day businesses are under a lot of pressure to move quickly; economic uncertainty is forcing them to be agile in how they make decisions, while aligning real estate requirements with changing business needs is challenging. Some are faced with shrinking headcounts, while others are managing newfound growth.

To entice employees to return to the office, businesses must deliver both attractive and Covid-secure environments, which also deliver on all the other key requirements of the modern office, such as sustainability, productivity, wellbeing and collaboration.

That’s a lot for any business to manage, especially if real estate is not your core expertise, which is why flexible office solutions delivered by expert operators are increasingly attractive.

As the world of work evolves, how can you stay competitive?

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What is flexible office space?

Popularised by the likes of WeWork, TOG and Regus, flexible office space offers a more flexible alternative to today’s conventionally leased alternative.

Though the term ‘flex space’ conjures up images of self-starters and tech entrepreneurs working in open-plan, plant-filled spaces, that’s only half the picture. There is a significant rise in the number of coworking corporates seeing the merits of flex space, too.

Why are businesses choosing flexible office space?

Against a backdrop of uncertainty and an ever-evolving world of work, businesses are drawn to the perks of flexible contracts, all-inclusive rents, the ability to shrink and grow their space, and an attractive list of amenities – which tend to boost employee wellbeing and productivity.

Other appeals include:

• Moving straight into a furnished office. Depending on what you need and how big your business is, this could be a private office, an entire self-contained floor, or a few fixed desks in an open-plan space.
• Accessing multiple locations. When you sign a contract, you sign it with the office space provider, rather than a specific building. So, while you’ll always have your private office as a set base, with some brands, you’ll get multi-site access to other locations in their portfolios.
• Paying an all-inclusive monthly cost. You’ll be able to budget accordingly with an all-inclusive cost, which covers rent, service charge, utilities (including WiFi), furniture costs, use of communal breakout areas and daily cleaning. Plus, kitchens will be stocked with tea, coffee and in most cases, help-yourself-pantries, while many providers operate complimentary events calendars, too.
• The ability to grow or scale-back your space. Providers know how flexible startups, scale-ups and SMEs need to be when it comes to the space they occupy. In most cases, early stage businesses don’t know what their headcount will be in a year – or even six months, so that flexibility can be reassuring.

Is flexible office space right for your business?

Deciding on the right route for your business will take time – but you can filter it down with the following questions.

How much money can you afford to pay upfront?

The upfront costs of moving into a flexible office space are lower than those involved with the alternative route of a traditional lease, where you’ll have to pay for legal fees, stamp duty, agent fees and other professional fees, on top of a deposit of up to 12 months of rent.

With a traditional lease, you’ll typically have to pay to fit out and furnish the office yourself – which is great for businesses who want complete control over its look and feel and are planning to keep the same space for a longer term, but less so for businesses planning on shorter time horizons.

How quickly do you need to move in?

When it comes to serviced office space, you can usually be settled in within two to four weeks of signing up. With a traditional office lease, however, it might be three to six months before you can move in on account of the paperwork, legal requirements and fit-outs.

How confident are you that your headcount will be the same for the next 3 years?

Flexible office providers are accustomed to accommodating growing (or even shrinking) businesses. Some go as far as to offer a monthly-rolling contract, so you’ll be able to stay flexible in responding to whatever challenges you face in the future.

When it comes to traditional leases, on the other hand, you’ll be committed to a specific amount of space for the lease term, so there’s much less flexibility if your business grows or scales back.
How much responsibility do you want to take on when you leave the space?

The joy of being able to move straight into a fully furnished flexible office space is that you can leave it as you found it – typically, you won’t have to pay for more than a clean-up. But with a traditional lease, you’ll shoulder the responsibility of returning the space to the condition in which you took it.

What’s motivating your office search?

If you want to be near like-minded businesses, leverage an existing network of entrepreneurs, or even house a short-term project, coworking or serviced office space might be the right fit. But if you’re looking for complete privacy and control over your own space, a managed office space or even a traditional office lease might be a better option.

How established is your business? Could something go wrong?

Smaller, less established businesses tend to opt for coworking or serviced office space because if something were to go wrong, it’s easy to reduce costs. If you needed to, you could downsize quite quickly or leave all together after a one to three month notice period.

Larger, more established businesses who are confident about their balance sheets and want to stamp their brand on their office for a number of years tend to opt for traditional leases.
Are you prepared to organise your own IT, maintenance and cleaning?

Services like cleaning, WiFi, maintenance, mail-handling and reception will come under your all-inclusive monthly rent with a flexible office space, while traditional office landlords will leave pretty much all of this up to you.

Do you want to have some control over your office’s look and feel?

Another option you might wish to consider is managed office space, which also falls under the umbrella of flexible office space, but seeks to deliver the best bits of serviced office space and the traditional lease alternative.

Here, you’ll work with a managed provider to achieve a personalised look and feel – which they’ll deliver for you – so you get all the benefits of a serviced or coworking space but with more scope to make it your own. Terms on these managed office spaces range from one to five years, and you’ll still enjoy the serviced benefits like cleaning, a stocked kitchen and an all-inclusive rent.