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Enjoy a clean Coronavirus commute with serviced offices in London

Posted on by aleks

The newly emerging concept of a ‘COVID-secure workplace’ is not just about social distancing in offices, but also includes some important hygiene considerations.

From the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, the number one message has been to wash your hands, and that still serves as a summary of many of the measures we can all take to protect ourselves and our employees against the virus.

Thanks to our own careful planning, our serviced offices in London and Manchester already cater for the additional demands of COVID-19 workplace hygiene and are ready for immediate use.

Top tips for Coronavirus hygiene in offices

It’s important to check the latest government guidance before making any decisions that could affect Coronavirus hygiene in offices.

But based on the current situation, here are a few top tips you might want to keep in mind when putting in place staff policies for the next few months or more.

  • Hand washing: Still the most important way to reduce COVID-19 risk, regular hand washing with soap destroys the lipid layer that holds the virus cell together.
  • Surface cleaning: Surfaces that might hold live virus cells are known as ‘fomites’ and regular sanitising can help to remove those cells and reduce COVID-19 risk in the workplace.
  • Fresh air: Virus cells disperse more quickly in open air. You can help to achieve this in offices using good ventilation and by letting as much fresh air as possible into the room.

Make sure staff are engaged with your Coronavirus mitigation methods, whether that means you need to provide some specific health and safety training, or just remind them of when they should wash their hands and wipe down their desk.

A COVID-clean Coronavirus commute

Social distancing is difficult on public transport, including the London Underground and Manchester Metrolink, so more of us are being encouraged to commute by car, bicycle or on foot.

Obviously your ability to walk to work depends on how far away you live, but it’s a good reason to be out of the house for longer on sunny days.

We provide cycle racks at our serviced offices in London and Manchester, so if you’d like to arrive to work that way, we should be able to accommodate you with a secure place to park.

And our on-site washrooms mean you can get cleaned up on arrival, so whether you get caught in bad weather en route, or you just want to thoroughly wash your hands, face and body before starting your day or travelling home, we have the facilities you need.

Working with you

This is undoubtedly a challenging time for many businesses and office workers, made all the more complicated by the ever-changing guidance on who can go to work, where and when.

It’s unlikely to end within a matter of weeks, so we will be working with all of our clients to accommodate changing needs wherever possible.

From COVID-secure meeting rooms in London and Manchester, to spacious serviced offices for social distancing at work, we are doing everything we can to help you meet and exceed your safety obligations so your staff can return to work and stay there.

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.

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.

Better business continuity with virtual offices

Posted on by aleks

Our virtual offices in London and Manchester are the perfect way to improve business continuity if you want to be able to work from home or from any other remote location at short notice.

We offer virtual office addresses that match our serviced offices in Manchester and London, giving you a physical contact address on the Isle of Dogs adjacent to Canary Wharf, or on Exchange Quay or Clippers Quay in Salford Quays, adjacent to the MediaCityUK development.

However, you don’t have to work on-site from our physical serviced offices. Instead, you can work from home, a local hotdesking facility, or anywhere else that gives you what you need to get the job done.

If all you need is an internet connection, you could be in your bedroom, home office or local coffee shop, yet contactable using professional details like a central London or Salford Quays postal address and geographic landline telephone number.

Go virtual for better business continuity

Virtual offices are convenient if you don’t need physical space to run your business from, but they can also enable better business continuity if you only need to work remotely some of the time.

For example, if transport disruption leaves you unable to make the morning commute to our serviced offices in Manchester and London, you can seamlessly transition to working from a virtual office until your travel route is restored.

Your business gains greater flexibility and resilience in the face of all kinds of disruptions, and if you employ a workforce, you make it easier for them to keep working too.

Here when you need us

Working from virtual offices in London and Manchester doesn’t mean you can’t have access to physical facilities on-site too – whether that means serviced office space for staff who need to be there in person, or meeting rooms you book as and when you need them.

In addition to our serviced offices, we have meeting rooms in Manchester and London, again matching the postal addresses of our virtual offices, so if you occasionally need to meet with important clients, suppliers, investors or you need a professional place for recruitment days, we’re here.

Just let us know ahead of time and subject to availability, we can book a meeting room in London or Manchester at our well-appointed office buildings.

Again, it’s about allowing you to work the way you need or want to, but with the best business continuity whether that’s in the face of disruption, or just across different ways of working.

Find out more

Flexible working practices are allowing businesses to do more with the resources at their disposal, whether your company is just you or a sizeable remote workforce, while ensuring the transition from working on-site, to working from home or at distance, is as seamless as possible.

To find out more about our virtual offices in London and Manchester, contact the Serviced Office Company today and we can help you to improve your business’s flexibility and resilience while maintaining a professional public image.

Flexible workplaces unlock competitive advantage for SMEs

Posted on by aleks

If you’re a small business that makes use of flexible workplaces like serviced offices, meeting rooms for hire and virtual offices, you could be sitting on a competitive advantage just waiting to be unlocked.

According to the Small Report, an analysis of UK SMEs published in February 2020 by Small Business Britain, flexible workplaces are one thing start-up companies should be shouting about.

The report includes a checklist of opportunities for small businesses to tap into, and makes flexible workplaces an item in their own right.

“Showcase your good work,” the checklist advises. “As a small business, you are likely creating a flexible workplace for yourself and others and looking after your staff and the local community.

“Start telling others about the great work you do and make this a competitive advantage.”

How flexible workspace supports staff

A flexible workspace like our serviced offices in London and Manchester provides several ways to support the wellbeing of your employees.

We provide kitchen facilities so staff can get refreshments throughout the day, as well as breakout rooms where they can relax in comfort while away from their desks.

Our meeting rooms in Manchester and London can be booked as and when you need them, giving staff some private space for meetings, interviews and training sessions.

And as your business grows, you can scale up your workspace too by expanding into available office space in the same building.

This all means your employees benefit from comfortably furnished, brightly decorated office interiors with all of the space and equipment they need to get their job done to a high standard.

Greet your supply chain in flexible meeting rooms

Our flexible meeting rooms for hire in Manchester and London are not only for internal meetings; they can also be used to host visitors from your external supply chain, including suppliers and customers alike.

They give you a private place to negotiate future arrangements and sign contracts, or just to catch up on progress with your key clients whose custom is crucial to the ongoing growth of your organisation.

You don’t face continuing running costs for this space. It’s just there when you need it, subject to availability, and when you book a meeting room in advance we can make sure it’s all set up and ready for your event to begin on time.

What else do you need?

If you have clear ideas about what your small business needs from your workspace in order to thrive, we want to hear them so we can let you know if our serviced offices in London and Manchester already cater to your needs, or if we can do so easily in the future.

We are proud of all the SMEs who have used our serviced offices as a way to get off the ground while keeping premises overheads to a minimum, and we look forward to supporting many more of Britain’s small businesses in their early stages in the years to come.

That’s not to say you have to be a new start-up to benefit from the flexible workspace of serviced offices; many of our tenants stay for the long term and continue to enjoy the advantages of all the on-site amenities we provide.

The unseen effects of bright and airy office space

Posted on by aleks

Our serviced office spaces are designed to be bright and spacious, with plenty of natural light wherever possible and enough room to comfortably move around.

This has obvious aesthetic appeal – you spend your work days in a pleasant, comfortable environment complete with shared meeting rooms, kitchen facilities and breakout rooms for relaxation.

But there’s more to it than meets the eye. Research published in Italy last summer looked at the effects of the interior design of office space on occupants’ circadian rhythm, which governs the sleep cycle and other factors like daytime alertness.

The study first looked at the optimal conditions for working under artificial lights and then introduced natural daylight to see if this had a further effect on occupants’ melatonin levels, using a measure called Equivalent Melanopic Lux or EML.

A helping hand for daylight

According to the results, natural daylight provides a higher level of indoor illuminance, which helps to increase EML.

But the article conceded that at certain times of the year and when the weather is overcast, natural light alone is unable to deliver the levels of light needed and artificial lights must be used to assist.

In these circumstances, bright office interiors have another advantage – their brighter walls reflect more of the light from both natural and artificial sources, keeping office interiors well lit with less energy consumed.

That means white walls and other reflective surfaces are not only visually pleasing, they also sustain the circadian rhythms of employees and reduce energy bills in the workplace too.

Comfort from colour

If a plain white office doesn’t sound appealing, don’t worry – the study also looked at the effect of colour, which you can find on accent walls and furniture throughout our shared office spaces and meeting rooms.

The research found that coloured panels with high surface reflectance could further boost EML by nearly 10% in offices with a grey interior and by more than 1% in white offices.

According to the research, colours with shorter wavelengths – such as the blue-green end of the spectrum – are especially effective at achieving this.

We believe strongly in the benefits of having some colour around the workplace, as you’ll see in many of our meeting rooms and serviced offices.

You can also add your own branding and decor to the office space you occupy, giving you free rein to include any colours you choose to help boost employee wellbeing and productivity.

Best practice for EML

The International WELL Building Institute’s WELL Standard sets out minimum recommended EML levels for the workplace, including:

  • At least 200 EML at over 75% of workstations between 9am and 1pm.
  • Minimum 150 EML at all workstations using electric lights.
  • Break rooms with at least 250 EML via daylight and/or artificial lights.

Employees can improve their own circadian rhythm further by avoiding bright lights as bedtime approaches – the WELL Standard recommends no brighter than 50 EML in living environments, including bathrooms and bedrooms, at night-time.

By getting bright light in the daytime and reducing EML levels in the evenings, the natural circadian rhythm stays on track, helping employees to get enough sleep and arrive refreshed and ready for work the next day, every day.

What do clients love about Serviced Office Company?

Posted on by aleks

Our serviced offices and meeting rooms in Manchester, MediaCityUK and London have seen plenty of tenants over the years and have served as virtual offices for even more.

So what is it that keeps customers coming back year after year, meeting after meeting? We publish testimonials to our website so you can see for yourself and the answer is… everything!

Here we’ve picked out some of the benefits our clients mention time and time again in their positive feedback.

Location

We work hard to bring your serviced offices in London and Manchester’s most desirable locations, from Canary Wharf to Salford Quays and MediaCityUK.

So it’s always great when a happy customer praises our convenient yet highly sought-after locations.

This is especially true for virtual office customers, who might otherwise find it impossible to get a professional-looking postcode or geographic telephone number in the areas we serve.

Ease of Access

Our locations are not just about looking good on paper – they’re also easy to access via public transport and road alike.

Serviced offices in London at Davenport House are minutes from the nearest DLR station, while our serviced offices in Manchester are well served by Metrolink and other public transport.

All of our office buildings and meeting rooms are close to water, with many rooms offering a direct view out and plenty of natural daylight, so your working day doesn’t feel like you’re trapped within four walls.

Meeting Rooms

Our meeting rooms in Manchester and London are more than just an add-on for our serviced office tenants – we put just as much care and attention into keeping them well appointed.

Again, client testimonials often praise the efforts we go to, especially those who have booked one of our delicious business lunches.

If you want a private place to hold a meeting with all the facilities you need – whether it’s a buffet lunch or audiovisual equipment – give us a call.

Staff

We pride ourselves on the professionalism of our employees, so it’s always great when our tenants take pride in our level of service too.

Whether you’re a serviced office tenant or you make use of our virtual office service, you’ll get to know our reception team well – and so will your employees, customers and other visitors.

Our seamless service means that our professionalism will always reflect positively on your business too and we hear time and time again from clients who are impressed by how well we meet their needs and how quickly we can respond to requests.

Flexibility

Flexibility is at the core of providing good serviced office space and we meet our clients’ needs in so many different ways in this area.

Virtual offices in Manchester and London mean you can have a professional address and telephone number without even working on-site from our offices.

Meeting rooms can be booked on an ad hoc basis, and serviced office tenants have the opportunity to expand as your business grows (subject to available space).

So if you’re looking to grow your operation in an environment that gives you everything you need, add your name to the list of very happy Serviced Office Company customers today.

WLTM: The importance of meeting rooms in business

Posted on by aleks

We live in a digital world and for some people in business, that means a virtual world. But meeting rooms still play an important role in bringing people together too.

It all depends on what works best for you. Google was born in a garage in 1998 but now has offices all over the world.

Some jobs can be done from anywhere, and for those people we offer virtual offices, giving you a professional-looking address and telephone number while you work from wherever you want.

But if you need to meet investors, suppliers or customers face-to-face, a formal meeting room can help you to put forward a professional image in person.

Our meeting rooms in Manchester and London are designed to do just that, in the business-like surroundings of our serviced offices and equipped well with ergonomic office furniture and other facilities.

Do meeting rooms matter?

In short, yes they do. A famous quote attributed to Apple innovator Steve Jobs says: “There’s a temptation, in our networked age, to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions.”

Whether this is wholly true is up for debate, an ever increasing number of entrepreneurs are making a success of working via virtual offices from anywhere with an internet connection.

Research by Great Business Schools found that 70% of young professionals in the USA did not believe it is necessary to physically go into the office anymore and 83% work remotely for at least some of the time.

But this is only one side of the story, and it’s not a question of whether physical meeting rooms are necessary – it’s a question of whether or not they are preferable.

The value of meeting rooms

The same study found that 95% of people believe face-to-face meetings are essential to maintain business relationships over the long term.

In-person meetings were especially popular for negotiations, with 93% preferring to meet face-to-face when negotiating with people of other cultural backgrounds or who speak a different first language, and 82% choosing physical meeting rooms to negotiate important contracts.

On average, 84% of people said they prefer physical meetings – even if they don’t believe they are essential to conducting business.

The research also revealed that most communication in business meetings is non-verbal (55%) with 38% of information inferred from inflection and only 7% from the actual choice of words used.

It’s a list that goes on and on, and it’s remarkable to see how many of the statistics are up around the 80-90% range or even higher, really highlighting how meeting rooms are still rated highly by the vast majority of people in business.

With our serviced meeting rooms in London and Manchester available to hire on an ad hoc basis, as well as our virtual offices in both cities for when you work remotely, you can have the best of both worlds – the flexibility of a digital career and the professionalism of an in-person meeting room when you need it.

Serviced offices help you avoid a sedentary work day

Posted on by aleks

There’s plenty of advice about keeping good posture while sitting at a desk all day, but serviced offices help you to avoid becoming too sedentary by giving you plenty of opportunity to move around throughout the day.

In recent weeks we’ve looked at the option to cycle to work or arrive on public transport, both of which help to keep you more mobile than simply sitting behind the wheel of a car on your morning and evening commute.

But you’re likely to spend about ten times longer at work than you spend on your commute, so anything you can do to keep mobile in the workplace can have a big impact too.

Our on-site facilities in our serviced offices in Manchester and London give you a choice of different ways to get up and stretch your legs, as well as some much-needed thinking time away from your computer screen.

Get refreshed

One of the most obvious options is to visit the kitchen facilities for a snack or drink – which has the added benefit of giving you extra energy or hydration when you need it most.

With on-site kitchen areas in our serviced offices in London and Manchester, refreshments are right there when you need them, even if it’s just an excuse to take a screen break and stand up for a while.

All of our supplied office furniture is ergonomically designed by recognised brand names in the business, but as comfortable as you might be at your desk, it’s always good to change position once in a while.

To enable this, we also provide informal breakout rooms where you can again take a few minutes away from your screen to enjoy a comfy seat and perhaps catch up with some of your fellow entrepreneurs from elsewhere in our serviced office space.

Keep in touch

Our breakout rooms are not only for relaxing; they are also equipped with telephones in case you want to place an important call to a client in a more comfortable environment.

We also have serviced meeting rooms available in all of our locations, again equipped with ergonomically designed office furniture, so if you’re meeting face-to-face with clients, candidates or investors, you can do it in comfortable surroundings.

They say a change is as good as a break, and this is certainly true when spending a stretch of time in one position, so we encourage all of our patrons to make full use of all of our facilities and relax those muscles throughout the course of the working day.

Doing so can avoid aches and pains, which in turn can help you feel fresher and less tired towards the end of the work day, especially if you remember to stay hydrated too.

With the new year underway, we know many people will be aiming for a healthier lifestyle, and you might be surprised by the impact it can have just by getting away from your desk for a few short periods to recharge your mental and physical batteries.