Know 5 Ways How Coworking Space Can Boost Your Professional Skills

Fixed Or Flexible Seats In A Coworking Space: Which One Suits Your Business The Most?

by | posted in: Business, Coworking Spaces | 0

So, you’ve decided to make the switch from a traditional office space to a coworking office. The benefits of a coworking space extend far beyond lowering costs. You don’t need to be concerned with day-to-day office administrative work, your team can work from a space closer to their home, networking becomes much easier and so on. To maximise these coworking benefits of small and mid-size businesses, you need to not only choose the right coworking space, you also need to find an arrangement that suits your business. 

Coworking spaces typically follow two models – fixed seats and flexible seats. Let’s look at how to find the model that works best for you.

What Are Fixed Seats in a Coworking space?

A fixed seat or dedicated seat plan is one where a particular desk is set aside for you as long as you are working from the coworking space. It gives you a sense of ownership over the space and you don’t need to spend time looking for a space to work from every morning. 

What Are Flexible Seats in a Coworking space?

A flexible seat or hot seat plan is one in which you don’t have a fixed place to work from. You can claim any unoccupied desk as your own – for that day. Flexible desks give you the freedom to work beside new people every day. 

Best locations for rent a coworking space in gurgaon

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Choosing The Right Coworking Arrangement For You

Choosing the right model for your business is all about weighing the pros and cons of fixed and flexible seats against your needs.

1. When You Have A Very Tight Budget

One of the key reasons for the popularity of coworking spaces among small businesses is the lower costs as compared to running an independent office. Choosing the right coworking arrangement can help you cut down costs even further. Flexible seats are typically priced 10-15% lower than fixed seats. These seats can also be booked on a per-day basis while fixed seats must be booked for a longer period of time. 

2. When You Want To Network

Coworking culture is all about networking. You never know when the person sitting next to you may help you brainstorm a new idea or collaborate with you on a design or even help you expand your audience by cross-promoting your product. 

If your business is in its growing stage and you want to network more, flexible desks are the ideal solution. You get to work with new people every day. Thus, every day becomes a new opportunity to find collaborators. 

However, if your business is still in its initial stages and you’re working on fine tuning details, you may not benefit as much from networking. You might be looking for a desk where you can focus and work during work hours and of course, network with people when you take a break. In such instances, a fixed desk is a better option. When you’re working, distractions are minimal and you can still experience the networking benefits of coworking in common spaces and during workshops and events.

3. When You Like Having Control Over Your Workspace

Some people thrive on regularity while others need every day to be different. If you like having things in their place and a regular schedule, a fixed desk would be the best choice. Every morning when you walk into the coworking space, you know your desk is going to be waiting for you. You know the people you’re going to be working beside and can build longer relationships.

With flexible seating, you never know what to expect. These seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis. One day you may find a great desk by the window but the next day, the only desk available may be in the center of the room.

4. When You Need Space For Your Team To Work Together

The popularity of coworking for mid-size companies is growing. It’s not just freelancers and entrepreneurs looking for coworking space. As the number of people wanting to work in coworking spaces increases, so are the sizes of these offices. Today, you can easily find a coworking office space with 250 or more desks. Thus, small and mid-sized businesses can have their entire team working from one coworking space. 

When You Need Space For Your Team To Work Together

When you have a team working in the same office, you probably want them to be able to sit next to each other. If you were to pick a flexible seating option, you might not be able to find space for all your team members to sit together every day. Worse, there may be days when there are only 9 vacant desks but you need 12. 

Thus, fixed desk plans are the best choice. When you book a set of dedicated seats, you are assured of a semi-private space where your team can work together every day without any hindrance.

đź’ˇ Are you looking for Coworking space in Gurgaon, Noida or Delhi?. We are just a call away.
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5. When You Want A Flexible Lease Choice

If you’re not going to be using the coworking space every day, a flexible seating model will be more cost-effective for you. Fixed seats have to be booked for a longer period while flexible seats can be booked on a per-day basis. So, if your office is running on hybrid mode where you work remotely for part of the week and in the central office for the other half, choosing a flexible seat plan will help balance costs.

In Conclusion

When it comes to coworking, in some cases, it’s fixed seats that will benefit a business and in others, flexibility is the better choice. You need to consider your budget, the size of your team, how often you will be working from a coworking space and other such factors before signing a contract. To know more about the fixed and flexible seat arrangements available at The Office Pass (TOP), contact us at 08999 828282.

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TOP TALKS: Ankit Khanna, Co Founder of Suraasa Teacher First

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Under the founder speak initiative of The Office Pass (TOP) christened #TOPTALKS, we are pleased to share the story of Ankit Khanna, Cofounder & CTO, Suraasa. Ankit & his team has been associated with TOP Coworking space for over 2 years. Suraasa helps teachers in meeting skill and certification requirements by virtue of its courses. Once ready, teachers are helped to get selected for Domestic and International teaching jobs and the local teaching approvals for the target countries. In this post, Ankit shares his experience of building and scaling the company.

Suraasa Team

Q. Tell us something about you (education & experience) and the business you started 

A. An Alumni of the National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar, Ankit completed his engineering in 2011. He laid the foundation of technology development at Suraasa. A keen researcher in AI, data science, and a flair for statistics and economics, he has implemented data-driven decision-making and growth hacking in various domains and industries.

Ankit started his career with procurement research at Beroe-inc, helping multiple Fortune 500 companies with predictive data modeling and advising their energy portfolio management. He later joined The Smart Cube, where he helped leading pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies with process re-engineering, market entry strategy, and cost modeling for BCCS and LCCS.

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Before building Suraasa, Ankit co-founded Les Transformations Learning, which was awarded as Best K-12 Teacher Training Institution of India multiple times. The company was credited with training 75,000+ teachers across 21 states of India.

With a goal to make teacher education accessible and bring the teaching resources to the palms of every teacher, Ankit founded Suraasa and leads the technology innovation, product design, and data science.

The vision of Suraasa’s team is to build the world’s largest network of highly skilled teachers by enabling career mentorship, pedagogy training, and global job opportunities for teachers.

Ankit believes that the right to education is pivoted on access to the right educators and he aims to create the world’s largest network of highly skilled teachers at Suraasa.

Q. How old is your company and how did you think of this concept? What problem are you trying to solve? 

A. Having trained and researched 75,000 teachers across 1500 schools covering 100+ cities and 21 states of India and winning lots of awards including “India’s Best K-12 Teacher Training Company” award in 2015, 2016, 2017, we came across some critical gaps which no one spoke about.

We asked why do teachers not grow in their careers just like people do in other careers? Why are teachers increasingly reporting high stress at work? Why do they quit teaching? Do they not receive proper mentorship or are they unaware of the skills that schools are looking for to help the teachers progress?

At the same time, we would often hear visionary school leaders spending months in search of high-quality teachers, and yet not finding the right candidates, despite offering high pay packages.

This sparked the idea for Suraasa, a tech-enabled upskilling platform for Teachers’ Career Growth. We decided to focus our efforts on researching and developing result-oriented upskilling programmes for educators at all stages of their careers, from a teacher to a principal.

Hence, Suraasa was created in 2017 with an aim to become an evolutionary catalyst in the field of K-12 Education & Child Development by bringing 360-degree transformation in teacher education.

Q. What is your business model (how do you make money)? Would be great if you can share some actual data like revenue growth ( QoQ or YoY), active user / customers, new initiatives etc

A. We retail outcome-linked upskilling programs directly to the teachers (B2C), including our marquee program PgCTL, which comes with an International Diploma in Teaching. Our teachers generally receive multiple job offers, international job opportunities, fast promotions saving them decades in their career journey, and accolades from students, parents, peers and school leaders.

We developed our MVP in India but tested it internationally first with teachers from 40 nationalities. Last year in 2021, we started retailing in India, and am happy to share that we are growing at an astonishing pace. For instance, we booked 55% MoM revenue growth in March 2022 alone.

Q. Top 3 steps taken by you to attract and retain talent? Explain how you develop / nurture talent in the company?

  1. Our company has a value system where we try to hire people whose internalised values match the three core values of Suraasa:
    1. Integrity
    2. Ethics
    3. Unconditional Support
  2. We provide a supportive, ego-free environment to our employees where their growth and development is an important priority for us. We believe that people would perform their best when they see themselves growing along with the organisation.
  3. We try to ensure that our employees experience that growth with us by maintaining a consistent evaluation and appraisal system.

Q. Tell us about your workspace (own office, coworking office, managed office or anything else like home office or hybrid working environment) and the reason for opting for them 

A. Our staff is spread across the country and in view of the pandemic we have provided our employees in the NCR with an option to work remotely or from the office. We have partnered with The Office Pass (TOP) to provide the employees, who wish to work from office, a warm and easily accessible workspace. The reason for choosing The Office Pass (TOP) for our employees was its location and the support received by the TOP team.

đź’ˇ Are you looking for Coworking space in Gurgaon, Noida or Delhi?. We are just a call away.
Call now: 08999 828282

Q. What do you like to do in your free time 

A. When I am not working, I like to learn new technologies or meet my Friends. I like to read and do multiple courses related to my domain, in essence, ed-tech. Currently, I have been researching the metaverse and I plan to expand Suraasa to the metaverse in the near future, as well.

Q. Tell us about your experience with The Office Pass (TOP) 

A. After the first lockdown ended, we wanted to reopen office for our employees and try hybrid model for work, this is when I had the pleasure to connect with TOP, especially Nikhil Madan. A supposed 15 minute meeting changed into a 2 hour long discussion and I knew that Nikhil is a person with Vision and passion for creating value for everyone. The experience thereon has been nothing short of fulfilling. TOP has helped us create a distributed hybrid model where our employees can choose to go to a TOP workspace near them. The amenities, support on the smallest things and fast resolutions is a core strength to TOP operations. TOP is an all weather partner for us and I would give my highest recommendation to TOP for standing the ground with us.

We thank Ankit for sparing time for this interaction with TOP.

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TOP signs Preferred Square Analytics for a Managed Office in Gurgaon

The Office Pass (TOP) signs Preferred Square Analytics for a Managed Office in Gurgaon

by | posted in: Coworking in Gurgaon | 0

Neighbourhood Coworking operator The Office Pass (TOP), which currently runs 11 Coworking Offices in Delhi-NCR has signed Preferred Square Analytics (PSA), a boutique Management Consulting and financial advisory firm for a Managed Office in Gurgaon. TOP has set-up this Managed Office at its newly launched 10,000 SqFt facilities in Vatika Towers on the prestigious Golf Course Road.

Managed offices are workspace-as-a-service solutions that are agile and cost-effective. These come with the added benefit of customisation, control and security of a traditional lease.

TOP & PSA teams participate in the puja ceremony to mark the opening of new office

Commenting on this arrangement, Mr. Nikhil Madan, Co-founder, The Office Pass (TOP) said, “We are elated on this launch not only because we now have the maximum number of Coworking & Managed Offices in Delhi NCR but also to witness the superlative growth of PSA. They joined TOP Coworking in 2017 when they were just two people. Today they have moved into a fully customized Managed Office space. Many congratulations to the PSA team and special thanks to Pulkit for trusting us with the business.”

PSA Employees and Their Families in Puja Ceremony
PSA employees and their families participate in the puja ceremony to mark the opening of new office

As companies call their workforce back to offices in a hybrid format, they need to recalibrate office spaces and the associated costs. These, however, remain a concern for occupiers. Hence, opting for flexible workspaces and especially a tailor-made Managed Office with minimal CAPEX, comprehensive services, privacy and exclusivity is the perfect office solution for them.

Pulkit Goel, Founder, Preferred Square Analytics said, “We are excited to move into our new space. Nowadays, there are a lot of options when a company needs an office space. For Preferred Square Analytics (PSA), TOP was the best choice since it was the right cultural fit for us, with founders who are highly approachable, and the working environment that is vibrant and flexible with quality infrastructure. Just what we were looking for”.

Top and PSA Teams
TOP and PSA teams

TOP is a leading Coworking company in India that runs offices across Gurgaon, Noida and Delhi. Over 100 mid to large size companies are using TOP Coworking and Managed offices. TOP plans to open over 50 offices over the next 2 years with presence in multiple cities across India.

Pulkit further adds, “TOP and PSA took baby steps together in 2017 and have been instrumental in each other’s growth since, and our relationship has been more friendly than professional. Preferred Square had a humble beginning with TOP renting out just two seats at their only 50-seater coworking office at Sohna Road. TOP now manages this new and exclusive office space for PSA on the Golf Course Road, one of Gurugram’s most exclusive areas. They have also evolved as one of the largest networks of Coworking Spaces, Shared Offices & Managed Offices in Gurgaon.”

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Workspace Sentiment Survey 2022

Workplace Sentiment Survery 2022 Post Covid by The Office Pass (TOP)

by | posted in: Coworking | 0

Demand For Coworking Space to Improve Amidst Employees Return to Workplace, says a Survey by The Office Pass (TOP) 

TOP conducted a survey titled “Workplace sentiment post covid”.

National, 19 April 2022: The Office Pass (TOP), one of the largest home-grown Neighbourhood Coworking & Managed Offices operator, conducted the second edition of its survey titled “Workplace sentiment post covid” in the month of March-April 2022. The survey saw participation from employers and employees of 173 small and mid-sized companies. Companies surveyed are in in the field of IT, Sales & Marketing, Finance, Customer Services and HR. The survey, conducted among companies and their employees, brings to the forefront various challenges and opportunities employees have faced with this new mode of operation. Additionally, the survey focuses on employees’ willingness to work remotely from their homes as well as infrastructural requirements to aid them to operate effectively, among others. 73% of respondents were male and 27% female.

As per the survey findings, post the covid pandemic, many more businesses have realised the economic, social and health benefits of implementing a hybrid working model compared to the pre-covid period. Preference for Hybrid work, Work near home, Going to the office 2-3 days a week are some of the post-covid emerging trends that are popular among employees and employers. It remains to be seen if these trends will last long or the pressures of business will play spoilsport.

TOP 6 Workplace Sentiment Survey 2022 FINDINGS

1. Tying up with a Coworking operator is the preferred option for employers

Tie up with coworking operators to enable employees to work from near their home was the preferred option among 48% of employers. This was followed by 19% who wanted to work out of a traditional office. Around 13% of employers preferred calling their employees to the office 2-3 days in a week on rotational basis.  It is interesting to know that in the earlier survey conducted post covid first wave, only 29% of employers had preferred a tie-up with the Coworking operators.

These findings are a marked departure from the pre-covid period where the regular office was the dominant theme and work from home was not a preferred option (excepting a few IT companies).

As an employer what would you plan for your employee

2. Employees prefer attending office

62% of all employees prefer going to the office, 28% like to work in a hybrid model (combination of #WFH & Office) and only 10% preferred permanent #WorkFromHome. Employees have worked from home for better part of last 24 months. They are now expressing a desire to move out of home.

The ability to network, expand social connect and a formal demarcation between work and personal life maybe some of the reasons behind this shift.

Employee Preference

3. The ideal distance between Home & Workplace should be

48% of employees prefer their office to be within 3-5 Kms from their residence. 27% would prefer an office within 3 Kms where-as 20% are okay to commute 6-10 Kms. Only 5% would like to commute >10 Kms to reach office. There is an overwhelming preference for an office close to the place of residence. #WorkNearHome or #NeighborhoodCoworking is the preferred choice among 75% of respondents.

Ideal distance between Home and Workplace

4. Main reason for choosing a coworking office

38% of respondents would choose a coworking space as it helps in saving of commute time to work. The second biggest reason for preferring a coworking space was saving in office operations costs (highlighted by 27% of respondents). Two smaller reasons were, networking opportunities (24%) and exhaustion of work from home (12%).

Top reasons to choose coworking space

5. Main advantages of Work From Home

Top 3 benefits of Work From Home for employees are, saving on commute to office (42%), better health and safety (39%) and more time for children and family (10%). Commute time is coming across as a major pain point among employees. In cities like Delhii NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore and some tier 2 cities, where infrastructure has not kept pace with population growth, commute time can take two to three hours of your work day. This is considered a problem and employees and employers are looking for a solution like #WorkNearHome and #NeighborhoodCoworking.

6. Companies are optimistic about their business growth

Companies are planning to hire more employees in the next 12 months compared to the preceding 12 months. % of companies wanting to hire between 25-50 employees have grown from 8% to 25%. This % for companies wanting to hire more than 50 employees have grown from 6 to 8%. Companies wanting to hire only 10 employees have reduced from 60% to 45%.

Commenting on survey findings Nikhil Madan, Cofounder, The Office Pass (TOP) said, “Businesses worldwide face multiple challenges, including ensuring that their business is agile enough to adapt to change. Our research shows that businesses that haven’t already considered the financial and strategic benefits of flexible workspace need to do so now. Otherwise, they face being seen as out of touch, both with their competitors and with the demands of the modern workforce on what constitutes a great day at work, which means losing out on the best talent.”

In 2020, the work lives of people across the world underwent a paradigm shift, with working from home becoming the norm overnight. However, companies have already started opening offices across the country in a staggered manner. They are now expediting the pace as the concerns over the Omicron variant have subsided significantly.

About The Office Pass (TOP) 

The Office Pass (TOP) is a technology-driven Neighborhood Coworking & Managed Office space provider in India.

Neighborhood Coworking is different from conventional Coworking Spaces as it caters to people nearby (i.e., within 5 kms). TOP firmly believes, given an option, people in India would love to work in high quality Coworking office close to their place of residence rather than wasting time commuting long distance. TOP is the only Coworking & Managed Spaces Company in India that promotes #Walk-to-Work.

Our vision is to have multiple Coworking offices spread across the city – so one can reach the closest TOP office in less than 10 minutes. You can think of TOP as a convenient store for Coworking (like 7-ELEVEN).

TOP’s Coworking & Shared offices are technology driven. All operational tasks like member acquisition, marketing & retention, invoicing, collections & query management are driven through technology. TOP’s in-house team has developed tools & systems for website CMS – including new offices & services management – leading to faster turnaround time.

TOP is a leading Coworking company in India that currently runs 12 offices across Gurgaon, Noida and Delhi. Over 100 mid to large size companies are using our Coworking and Managed offices. We plan to open over 50 offices over the next 2 years with presence in multiple cities across India.

Visit www.theofficepass.com and follow TOP on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Media Contact:

Natasha Gupta

Story Brews Communications

M: 9811945822

Email: natasha@storybrews.com

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