Co-working place is a creative concept to house a variety of workers from various fields and companies. Professionals mostly benefited from the co-working workplaces are freelancers, remote workers, entrepreneurs and self-employed individuals, who get the opportunity to work independently or collaboratively, as it suits their needs. Some of the social aspects in which workers can get benefitted from a co-working culture are that it creates opportunities for collaboration, creating network, socialization, and sharing creative ideas to develop and generate new business opportunities within a high-end working infrastructure.
The remote offices have been preferred by the growing businesses since while boosting collaboration, interaction and networking, they are well-equipped with technology state-of-art facilities and are aesthetically lucrative. Furthermore, the high-end working infrastructures are cost-effective, making them a smart choice for the start-ups and small and medium enterprises.
While the shared offices have economic and social benefits, the space design has a significant impact on the work culture and productivity. Let’s explore some of the ways a co-working space can be structured to create a productive office environment.
Inclusive workplace
The co-working spaces are designed to accommodate a wide range of employees – some might desire a quiet and independent workplace and others a busy and interactive work environment. To make a co-working space more productive, it should be designed to be open and welcoming. One of the easy tactics to make the co-working space attractive for the brilliant minds is using deep earth tones and green plants. Scientific studies have clearly indicated that having plants around the workplace helps employees get more energetic and creative. It also increases the productivity and creativity of the employees.
Ergonomic workplace
Several studies have uncovered that back pain, arm pain, and musculoskeletal disorders are the most common complaints among employees. Hence, it is suggestible to design a co-working space with ergonomic furniture like height-adjustable desks and ergonomic chairs. Also, dynamic co-working spaces should focus on the mental and physical well-being of the employees by organizing weekly yoga classes and having spaces for employees to hang out or play indoor games.
Welcoming infrastructure
Co-working spaces are generally created to welcome diverse employees. This prompts the need to give priority to certain employee-friendly measures like making entrances easily accessible with ramps, elevators, and automatic doors, and providing special equipment like adjustable desks and accessible bathrooms; thereby encouraging a stress-free work environment. Also, considering that some employees might prefer to work in their personal spaces, freestanding cubicles can be placed wherever required and re-configured at any time. While this will both allow employees to work personally and also the cubicles can be restructured to create a larger space where employees can work collaboratively.
Safe and healthy work environment
With the hybrid working module becoming more common, especially post pandemic, maintaining a healthy and safe workplace remains prior for any office. Implementing effective health and safety protocols at co-working spaces can be complicated and daunting, mostly because of the large volume of workers who are working at their transient offices. Thereby, the general health and safety rules should essentially be simple and easy-to-understand to ensure that both the existing and the new members stay informed.
(The author is Mr. Aditya Mehta, CEO and Co-Founder, Akasa Coworking and the views expressed in this article are his own)
