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Month: April 2020

Virtual offices – work from home with a central London address

Posted on by aleks

Working from home has been a growing trend in recent years but the events of 2020 have required many people to adopt an even more flexible approach to the way they do business.

If you have been surprised by your ability to work productively from home, a virtual office in London or Manchester could be an ideal long-term solution as we all start to get back to work.

Virtual offices give you a physical address and geographic landline telephone number in a desirable location like central London, Manchester city centre or Salford Quays.

A professional postcode helps to put the right impression across to your clients – even while you work from your home office or kitchen table.

No need for physical premises?

For some people, virtual offices in Manchester and London are a way to have a physical address when you don’t need any premises.

This might be because your business is mobile or because you travel a lot, simply working from the nearest available internet connection or sending out products from any local post office.

There are many different reasons why you might not need an office to work from, but still want a professional postal address and telephone number – virtual offices are the answer to those seemingly contradictory needs.

Ready to return to work?

We are currently living in uncertain times, as social distancing measures are likely to affect the way we work for several months to come. However, things will gradually return to more normality.

By using a virtual office in London or Manchester, you can achieve some continuity. At this time when more people are working from home, you get all of the benefits already mentioned above.

As we move beyond social distancing, in-person meetings can start to take place again. Whenever that happens, we have meeting rooms in Manchester and London ready to hire as and when you need them.

Importantly, our meeting rooms are located at the same addresses as our virtual offices – so again, you get some crucial continuity as your business returns to normal.

Transition from virtual to physical office space

Finally, if you expect to need physical office space in the future, but are not yet ready to take that leap, a virtual office address is an excellent stepping stone.

It allows you to test the water, to identify your local market in the area around your office address – you could even have virtual offices in London and Manchester to give you a presence in both the north and the south.

As your business grows, and especially if you find you are holding more face-to-face meetings in the future, we have serviced offices available at our premises, so you can make a smooth transition from virtual to physical office space when the time is right.

If you would like to know more about virtual offices and how they can give you professional contact details while you continue to work from home, please get in touch and we will be happy to help you decide which of our locations would be best for your business.

Privacy and pot plants add to the positives of shared office space

Posted on by aleks

We all know shared office space can enhance collaboration, making it easier for teams to meet with each other in an open-plan setting like in some of our serviced offices in Manchester and London.

But what do people really want from an open-plan office? Researchers from Auckland University of Technology asked that question in an article in Applied Ergonomics earlier this year.

They found that employees prefer fresh, inviting and open spaces – and will even bring their friends and family to take a look at their workplace if they like it enough!

We have worked hard to incorporate some of these kinds of desirable features into our serviced offices in London and Manchester, including several characteristics mentioned in the article.

Pot plants and nature

We’ve mentioned pot plants in the past and, again, the researchers from Auckland found they really do make a difference to employees, in a survey of one particular workplace.

“Plants were frequently mentioned in the context of what people most liked about the office,” they wrote, and their figures showed pot plants to be the second-most mentioned feature overall.

This ranks pot plants above many of the ‘usual suspects’ of good office design, such as the interior decor, natural light, kitchen facilities and reception area – all of which also rated highly.

Versatile and scalable space

The availability of versatile spaces was the only feature to rank more highly than pot plants in the survey, as the workers involved favoured collaborative meeting rooms and the availability of an on-site library.

In a follow-up survey, the company involved had hired more staff, leading to less space per person in the office. At that time, nearly two thirds (62%) said they wanted more space, more storage, or more collaborative spaces and meeting rooms.

We understand the importance of scalability and versatility. That’s why wherever possible, we accommodate growing businesses by allowing you to occupy more of our serviced offices in Manchester and London as and when you are ready to expand.

And on the same premises, we also provide meeting rooms in London and Manchester, so your employees have a formal setting available to them for conferences, training sessions and interviews.

Privacy and breakout rooms

Finally, the researchers found that employees favoured the availability of private spaces, so that they could take some time away from the open-plan office area.

Importantly, they found that most of the surveyed employees did not feel that privacy was a problem when working in an open-plan setting – but some female staff wanted to be able to spend at least some of their time away from the main shared office space.

Again, most of those employees said meeting rooms were a good solution to this. In addition to our meeting rooms in Manchester and London, we also provide less formal breakout rooms and kitchen areas, so your staff have plenty of options when taking a break away from their desk.

We’re proud of our serviced offices – and we hope you’ll love them enough to show your friends and family! With natural light, pot plants, meeting rooms for hire and other versatile breakout spaces too, we aim to give you and your employees everything you need to work in complete comfort.