The FlowSpace Guide to Part-Time Office Spaces
Over the last couple of years we’ve noticed more hybrid teams looking to downsize from their full-time office to part-time office space. With the vast majority of hybrid teams on a two or three day in-office week, there’s of course a massive pull to think about how you can save costs on the days you don’t use.
Have you seen the post-school pick up playparks on a sunny Friday afternoon? Nobody is in the office.
So finding a space for a couple of days of the week that you actually use is quite attracive.
What’s not to like, right? While that sounds good in theory, we know it can be tricky to navigate – there are (like always) trade offs involved and it’s crucial to have as much information shared with the right stakeholders early on as possible, so you can fully consider the options available to you in the market.
Understanding the options
The options essentially are as follows:
- Book private offices by the day – think of this like making a meeting room booking for your team, but instead of booking a meeting room, you book a private office with desks and chairs. This is charged per person per day. You can arrive when the space opens, usually 08:30 and leave when the space closes usually around 17:30. On average this costs around £40-50 per person, per day. The space will put you in an available office for the day (you do not get to choose which exact one) and you will be allowed free roam of the larger space, using the communal areas for break out conversations or coffee breaks. Recently we have even seen some 100 person offices join the platform for bookings, meaning you can book a 100 person office space for around £1500 per day in some cases – insane deal!!!
- Subscribe to a 1-3 day per week office. If you know which space you like and the days of the week you wish to go to the office consistently – we can often secure you a better price if you wish to commit for a monthly agreement. The terms here are as flexible for the space as they are for you. The space can cancel your agreement with 30 days notice, this may happen if they sell the office to a full time client. Generally you will not be allowed to leave equipment or items in the office as other companies will use it on other days and thus this is a liability/insurance risk. We can help you find this space and get you a great rate and you can easily set up the agreement and subscribe through FlowSpace. This is a wonderful option for teams probably under 20 in size who know where they want to be and can fix their days and aren’t terribly worried about the risk of being moved out if the space sells the office. 90% of the time, FlowSpace can find you an alternative if this happens anyway. The pricing of these days varies by whether it’s a peak day or an off-peak day and some spaces can be prickly about customers taking an off-peak day as well as a peak day to ensure they can make up the total revenue on the office.
Example monthly pricing of how a 15 person part time office can work for taking the same day each month.
3. Try to secure an amazing deal on a full time office. Often, teams that wish for 2-3 days a week in a part time office, the price can come close to a terrific deal at a full time office. From time to time, flexible spaces offer deals with rent free periods or a new building needs to fill its offices. So we can in certain circumstances secure you up to a 30% discount on advertised rates. This obviously means you get an amazing space at a great price reduction on your previous rates – meaning your team have a secured space to call home.
These are essentially the 3 real options available to you. So while part time offices look and sound great on paper, often the real solution is a bit more nuanced to ensure your team are well-looked after and comfortable with their choices.
FlowSpace can help
While we are still building the tech to complement the market offering for part time offices, our team is here to help with this. We can offer free exploratory calls or consult with your team on the best options that we think are available to you.
From there we can put together a shortlist of spaces that you can consider, help negotiate rates and once all comfortable, you can easily subscribe to your ideal plan in FlowSpace.
Drop us a line anytime at heretohelp@flowspace.co