Hiring employees is a considerable achievement and a new set of difficulties for a young business owner. While it’s terrific that you’ve had enough market and financial success to warrant hiring additional personnel, expanding your “one-man shop” comes with new obligations. Aside from the legal, tax, and HR issues that come with recruiting, one of the first hurdles is choosing where to place your new employees. Even if you aren’t ready to sign a three-year real estate investment lease, hiring a team involves providing desks, seats, and a roof over their heads. There are alternatives to commercial real estate. Here are several options to consider when hiring new employees for your company.
Look into Coworking Spaces
Coworking spaces are open workplaces intended to enable freelancers, remote employees, and startup entrepreneurs to collaborate away from home. These offices, which are sprouting up in almost every major city, are very cheap. Your membership may include a dedicated desk, access to community meeting rooms, office activities, and other benefits.
However, coworking spaces have limits. Given the communal nature of these facilities, working as a team may seem distracting for some. It’s possible you won’t have access to conference rooms or other services as frequently as you’d want. Despite these drawbacks, these are a popular choice for fledgling businesses. In fact, business owners can even invest in coworking spaces not only for their staff but also as an opportunity to provide spaces for other growing companies.
Try Incubators for Small Businesses
Find out whether your local government or business development organizations have any active small-enterprise incubator facilities. Most small-business incubators aim to offer developing businesses with flexible office space and services, such as mentoring. These initiatives usually provide reduced rents to encourage company development and therefore increase the overall economic effect. Your expanding business may benefit from reduced rates and other businessman-friendly conditions that you may need to apply. Of course, not all regions have small-business incubators, and those that do may discover that rental spaces are restricted to specific sectors. Also, since these programs’ leasing agreements are more determined than coworking memberships, you’ll need to ensure your startup’s income stream is consistent enough to fulfill your lease obligations.
Rent Executive Office Suites
Lastly, if you are dedicated to leasing a separate office for your company, the executive office suite is a viable alternative to explore. Executive office suites, owned and managed by businesses like Regus and Intelligent Office, offer the distinct office space of a business incubator but with a slew of extra benefits, such as administrative assistance, mail processing, elevated tech utilities, and more. Generally speaking, executive office spaces are more costly than small-business incubators when measured in terms of cost per square foot occupied. In contrast to incubators, this office space offers smaller office spaces and more contract flexibility, making it a potentially smart office space option for developing companies.
Consider Remote Work
Before you sign any leasing agreement, you should first evaluate whether you need office space. Several technologies now allow you to manage workers online, whether they are local or miles away. Using technologies like Skype for office interactions, Basecamp for project management, and Salesforce for CRM data, for example, allows remote administration of a team of employees. Putting up a small framework and approach may help you save money and assist you in attracting talent. As a virtual employer, you may recruit workers from all over the globe, and those who accept may be more willing to work remotely.
One of the benefits of having a virtual office is that you can give people your office address. However, if you don’t have a physical office anymore, where and how do you have your mail delivered to you? They may, however, ship it to your residence. But what happens if you aren’t at home? It is not advisable to leave sensitive or secret documents at the mercy of your neighbors. In this case, virtual offices come in handy. Virtual offices can provide you with an address as well as communications networks for a decent cost. This includes service software, front desk solutions, such as a remote operator, and a more significant renowned address for receiving mail and other types of delivery, among other things. Having a home-based company eliminates the freedom and security issues that come with operating a business from home.
It goes without saying that when it comes to selecting the most appropriate workspace for your business, there are many factors to consider. However, by thinking beyond the commercial property bubble, you should be able to come up with a solution that saves you money while still meeting your company’s specific requirements.
