Picture this: It’s your first day at a new job. You’re excited about the company culture and vibe you picked up on during your interview. You follow the GPS directions to the address provided by HR but as you turn into a remote industrial area you realize you’re not headed to the fancy corporate headquarters where you interviewed. Nope. Instead, you’re headed to a warehouse, where the only signs of life are massive 18-wheelers, parked cars and a few feral cats roaming the parking lot.
It’s not looking good. In fact, it’s looking like this may be one of the least favorite offices of your career.
Still, you pull into a parking spot and head inside. Maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Nope again. As you step inside the vast warehouse, there’s not a person in sight to greet you. No smiling receptionist. No polite security guard. Just a vast echoing space with the buzz of forklifts whirring in the distance.
There go your dreams of making friends with your new coworkers over a gourmet vegan lunch in the trendy HQ cafeteria.
You head to an open doorway and stop in your tracks, shocked at the working conditions. Six employees (you’ll be number seven) crammed elbow to elbow into a teeny concrete former storage room, tapping away at computers. There’s no heating, air conditioning or proper ventilation. Let’s be honest: the space probably isn’t even OSHA-compliant.
Physical office space has a significant impact on employee satisfaction.
In the scenario above, the conditions were temporary while the company built new offices at the back of the warehouse. But for the cost of hastily propped walls, desks, a phone system and networking, plus a major renovation a few months down the road, this company could have easily housed its employees in a comfortable, amenity-rich, collaborative coworking office space that would have been much more conducive to employee happiness and productivity.
“My last job was an open office concept. I had to wear noise-canceling headphones just to get any work done, even though everyone was trying to be as quiet as possible. I got stuck sitting next to an extremely dramatic sneezer. She wasn’t why I quit 5 months in but I will never forget her shriek-sneezing.”
-Andrea J.
Most employees agree that working in an open office concept was the least favorite office of their career.
The open office concept. Sigh. Just about everyone dislikes them. They’re distracting. They can be loud. Research even shows that these workspaces are ineffective. Believe it or not, the open office concept actually reduce face-to-face engagement by about 70 percent. That’s bad for business. Why? When employees are engaged and happy, companies thrive and you can see it in productivity, profitability and customer satisfaction.
If happy employees are the key to innovation, growth, and improved revenue, it just makes sense to make sure their working conditions help them succeed. Coworking spaces support employee productivity with affordable private office spaces and on-site amenities. Happy employees, happy company.
“We’re gonna have you go ahead and move your desk down to the basement.”
-Kristina H.
If you want employees to love where they work, start with their workspace.
We’ve already established that the open office concept is outdated (and unsuccessful). Flexible office space is the future, accommodating the changing needs of the company rather than requiring employees to adapt to the available space.
Your employees are the ones who are going to be working in this space, so they have to love it. Involving your team in choosing a coworking location can improve morale and ensure the space works for everyone. Whether you have a tiny team of two or an entire department, there’s a coworking solution that checks most of the boxes for overall employee satisfaction.
Upsuite’s shortlist tool removes surprises and saves search time by providing access to 99% of available coworking inventory in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Toronto so leaders at growing companies can easily accommodate an expanding team without spending a lot of time or effort on the search.
“The last office I worked in was in a weird little faux-Spanish style building. I’d open it up in the morning and had to wait for the smell of mold to dissipate before I went in.”
-Melissa K.
Why spend money on renovating an office space that you’ll just be renting out for a few years?
No more forcing employees to stay in rundown, outdated offices. Instead, coworking spaces provide a way to move into newer offices in prime areas that companies might not be able to afford otherwise. Most coworking spaces offer substantial savings over traditional office space, plus flexible leases that accommodate scalability (you know, so Kristina H. doesn’t have to move her desk to the basement).When you don’t like where you work, every day can be a bad case of the Mondays. Management teams at expanding companies can find and secure modern, amenity-rich coworking spaces that meet employee satisfaction.
Best of all, the Upsuite coworking and flexible office market place allows for change and grow with company needs. Discover, visit and book spaces that will take employees from their least favorite office to their best.
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