Space matters


There are many things that should go into the decision of working remote. Largely it is dependent on personality, as I mentioned in this post, but many other factors play a part. Another primary factor is space. After the question of who, it is where and when people work.  It is important to find an appropriate space for each type of worker.
Remember too, working remote does NOT mean work from home. Remote also means virtual and can be applied to team members working in other locations, countries or time zones. Each situation denotes remote engagement, and needs to be managed accordingly.
Space matters when considering an employee or a team to be remote. This situation may refer to outsourcing a department or team to another country. Think about the infrastructure involved in running a business abroad, and so from a remote location. Think about the time zone differences, and cultural barriers that may come up while doing business together. Either in sending employees to another country or hiring in a foreign country, it is remote, and needs to be assessed appropriately.
Same applies to a home -office. Not every employee has a living space that would allow them to work effectively from home. Again, the first considerations should be focused around personality type and job function. Then it comes to finding the correct space. There is a lot of office space available for rent. Regus is one of the largest and well-known providers of Business Centers-- a way to enable employees to work however, wherever, and whenever they need to. This is a growing trend and it is becoming increasingly easy to find other local, smaller providers of a similar services.
Another great thing that can come from dropping into flexible work locations is cross-pollination. In traditional office buildings, departments are often siloed in their own quadrant of the building. Not only is it difficult to access colleagues in other departments, but there is never any connection to people in other fields or disciplines.  Collaboration with an existing work group can happen in a virtual space (as I mentioned in this post), but the types of connections available to remote employees are not available in traditional office space.
So although remote is good for many reasons, home-based offices are often not. There are many options for remote employees, and remote means many different things. So, when considering remote, space is a primary variable.

Comments

AH said…
I remember when I was working in the commercial real estate field I would come across Regus representatives. I would always try to promote the company for clients who were looking for smaller spaces, but their facilities were astronomically expensive and I had little success. I wonder if there were other companies that could perform like Regus at a more affordable cost?
November 29, 2011 at 4:46 PM
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