“Goodbye cubicles and mundane office!”
The uprising of co-working space marks the change on the traditional desk job. The idea of borderless space that creates a blurred line between working and leisure space seems to be tempting to many non-conformists.
Credit should be given to the men who made decades long rhetoric concept of balancing life and work into reality: Architect, Miguel McKelvey and ex-navy officer in the Israeli military, Adam Neumann.
Putting failed business ventures behind them, both men took upon themselves to put a half vacant floor in a building where they worked into good use.
Started off as Green Desk in 2008, the evolution saw rapid rise to fame and popularity among young and budding entrepreneurs and millennials who opted to work outside of a cliché office environment.
The groundbreaking start-up company later changed its name to WeWork in 2010. Its maiden 38,000 sq.ft. New York office is equipped with coffee lounge, conference rooms with video conferencing support, glass offices, laser printers and even office managers, along with countless borderless desks and lounges to work and chill.
It is now the fastest-growing lessee of new office space in New York and it is said to be a USD17 billion company. WeWork has also extended its reach even further to London, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv, China and Mumbai.
What’s with the rise?
It’s plain and simple. It is relevant to the needs of the people, globally.
People are morphing away from ‘desk jobs’, embarking on entrepreneurship through advancement of technology. The rise of self-employment has been astounding so is the figure of start-up companies that are trail blazing through the innovation economy.
Co-working space also creates a community with people from various companies, ventures and projects sitting side by side in one location.
If you are coming up your first webpage for your business, you might be lucky enough to be seated next to a web designer in a co-working space. Strike a conversation with him and perhaps you can get free consultation.
Plus, co-working space comes at a fraction of the price from a regular office rent, suitable for freelancers and new entrepreneurs.
Even those who are attached to mega organisations and companies opt for co-working space. These employees believe that they have more job control working in such environment, without having the wandering eyes of their ‘employer’ scrutinising their every single move.
Some even noted that they don’t need to come up with a work persona to be accepted, nor deal with internal politics that often pull employees down.
Even bigger organisations are jumping on the bandwagon, hoping to minimise cost and space. Employees are even encouraged to work remotely especially in co-working spaces knowing that there will be office facilities like mailing address, meeting rooms and great connectivity available at one’s finger tips.
The Colony’s lounge
Can co-working space be sustained?
Many have argued that the profit margin of such businesses is pretty low. In fact, it is considered as the riskiest business to operate as it leads to low margin, low volume.
With minimal start-up to begin, most co-working space owners could not risk charging premium price for any of their hot desks or permanent desks if the venue is run on basic office necessities.
What makes matter harder is the pool of customers utilising co-working space are among those from start-up companies and even freelancers, who are financially tight.
What can be done to survive? Diversity. Branching out beyond than just co-working space is the way to do it. Get other business partners like operators from the F&B industry to sell. Hungry entrepreneurs would definitely appreciate having a juice bar or a sandwich deli within their immediate reach.
WeWork has also branched out further into retail in the form of WeWork Services Store (selling office related tools and services) and now has expanded into co-sharing living space as WeLive to back its sustainability better.
Co-working space is located above the restaurant
Future looks good in Malaysia
Yes, things are looking bright for co-working space in Malaysia. There is a surge of entrepreneurship in the country; they need short term rental that could accommodate to their needs, especially among the Millennials.
C03’s co-working space in Puchong. (Picture sourced from Reuters)
In fact, this could be a solution to the country’s current office overhang by converting a fraction of these office spaces into a co-working space. Numerous commercial office developers have taken up such direction by appointing property management companies like Regus to run the show.
Below are Klang Valley’s existing co-working spaces:
- The Colony @ KLCC (6, Jalan Kia Peng)
- AirSpace (Sri Petaling)
- The Entrepreneur’s Lab (23-23A, The Oval , Bukit Kiara)
- JetPack Co-Working (Plaza Damas, Sri Hartamas)
- Nook (8, Jalan Riong, Bangsar)
- The Lower Penthouse (1 Jalan Hang Lekir)
- C7 Co-Working Space (Bukit Tunku)
- CEO Suite (Menara Maxis Menara Maxis KLCC)
- Common Ground (Changkat Semantan, Wisma UOA)
- Impact Hub (D7@Sentul East Design Center, Sentul East)
- The Co. Bangsar (8 Lengkok Abdullah)
- The Co. Row (42-48 Jalan Doraisamy)
- The Boutique Office (6-11 Jalan Esplanade, Bukit Jalil)
- WORQ (Glo Damansara)
- Whitespace Bangsar (Menara BRDB, Jalan Maarof)
- CEO Suite Axiata (9 Jalan Stesen Sentral 5)
- CEO Suite Q Sentral (2A Jalan Stesen Sentral 2)
- BMGS Pudu (30-1 Lorong Thambi 2)
- ServCorp NU Tower 2 (NU Tower 2, Jalan Tun Sambanthan)
- Uppercase Bangsar (29-07 Jalan Riong)
- The Success Factory (7-A Jalan SS15/4B Subang Jaya)
- START Co-Working Space (Bangunan Yayasan Syed Kechik)
- The Thinking Loft (7 Jalan PJU 1a/21)
- Regus KL Sentral (1 Sentral , Jalan Stesen Sentral 5)
- H Space Bandar Utama (KPMG Tower , Bandar Utama)
- Paper+Toast (179 Changkat Bukit Bintang)
- TedBoy Express @ Menara Standard Chartered (Menara Standard Chartered, Jalan Sultan Ismail)
- H Space Kota Damansara (Menara Mitraland, Kota Damansara
- Meja4U (Jalan PJU1a/4)
- Kiasu Lab (66&68 Jalan SS22/21 Damansara Jaya)
- The StartUp (7A Jalan Ceongsam Seksyen 10/11)
- C03 (Bandar Puchong Jaya)
Personalized office at The Colony
In the end of the day, co-working space is a breath of fresh air in how we operate from a day-to-day basis. It gives people more fluidity to work by breaking the norms of how an office should be.
For a consumer point of view, you will have cheaper rental space with shorter leasing period. As for those owning unoccupied office space, this could be a potential game changer in tackling the critical commercial office glut and of course, getting some returns in one’s investment.
If we can embrace advancement of technology seamlessly, we could definitely embrace the changes in the way we work!
Featured picture sourced from Telegraph. All GIFs sourced from Giphy.
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