Coworking spaces offer startups and rapidly expanding companies a lot of support, opportunities, and room for growth. But how do you successfully manage a growing team in a coworking space? Staying focused and giving your team members the support they need could be the answer.
1. Leverage the scalability of coworking spaces
Coworking spaces are designed to be easily scaled up. As your business grows, you can add space incrementally, based on your changing staff needs. Recognising you can access a range of zones or space types within a coworking space, you can easily plan for growth without committing to an expensive lease.
Scalability could be one of the reasons you originally chose a coworking space for your business. As you grow, you’ll be able to plan your requirements fairly easily, as long as you’ve chosen the right space.
- Choose the right coworking space – Speak to the coworking space business about scaling up your spacing requirements and the process involved.
- Onboard employees – As you hire new employees, make the onboarding process easy for them. Create a uniform induction program encompassing coworking tips so they have all the information they need to settle in quickly.
- Budget – Coworking spaces are cost-effective options as you’re expanding as a business, but as with any type of office space, you should budget ahead for your expenses as you grow.
2. Use your coworking space as a recruiting asset
As you scale up, you’ll be hiring more people and looking to attract the best talent in your field. Some businesses based in coworking spaces have had positive experiences with using their shared offices as recruiting assets. The right coworking space can be both appealing and contemporary. This is also an extra selling point for attracting top tier talent. Whether in job advertisements, interviews, or on your business website, you can highlight your amenities, networking opportunities and social events as part of the perks of the job. In addition underscore how working for a business based in a coworking space can boost the candidate’s working experience.
3. Maximise networking and partnering opportunities
Coworking spaces offer outstanding networking and partnering opportunities. As your business grows, you’ll be looking for ways to build your network. This can include customers, partners and a broader community beyond your business for your team. Most of all these links can enrich your business opportunities, company’s culture and day-to-day working experience.
Develop partnerships
Look for ways to build partnerships, whether it’s through cross-selling opportunities or cross-marketing for complementing products or services, such as shared promotional events. Be proactive about approaching businesses in the same coworking space and getting in touch if you see a great opportunity to partner with another local business.
Community events
Encourage your team to be involved in community events in your coworking space. Social nights, networking lunches, and other events can be excellent opportunities to raise your business profile and support your business growth. Community events can enhance your organisation’s culture and make your team feel like they’re part of a wider community. This in turn can also support growth.
4. Set daily goals
As you have a strategy and long-term vision for your business, set daily goals and hold your team to account for achieving them. With explicit, achievable daily goals, your team will find it easier to stay focused on the work at hand. Coworking spaces give your staff excellent opportunities to meet new partners and business contacts, but you won’t want to spend most of your time networking with others. Setting daily goals – along with your weekly and monthly targets – is a way to motivate your team to achieve what you have in mind.
5. Make use of zones
Encourage your team to make use of the different types of zones offered in your coworking space. You could have zones like silent areas, meeting rooms or collaborative working spaces. If team members need time to concentrate on solo work, they can work in the designated quiet areas. If you are seeing customers on site, book a meeting room for your discussion. Guide your team to matching the activity with the right type of zone, and your team will stay productive and effective as you scale up as a business.
6. Encourage your team to use tools to help focus
The fluid nature of coworking spaces can drive stronger collaboration and teamwork. Due to this there will be times when your team members will need to settle into their individual workstations and focus on the task at hand. Encourage team members to personalise their area so they can have a sense of their own space. In addition they should use tools like noise-cancelling headsets to help with focus. Simple strategies like these can support strong focus and productivity in your business, and in turn support rapid growth.
7. Address team cohesion
As your business grows, you could start to feel disconnected as an organisation, especially if you’re growing rapidly. Make an extra effort to address team cohesion. Because this can solidify your business culture and in turn boost motivation and productivity. Organise team social events, create collaborative online social platforms or schedule regular weekday lunches. Finding ways to get your team to socialise beyond work helps your company stays cohesive.
8. Act on feedback from customers
Finally, no matter what stage your business is in with respect to growth, never stop applying feedback from customers. Since as a growing business, you’ll need to continue fulfilling the customer-satisfaction criteria for success, just like any other business. Focus on keeping your customers happy, listen to what they’re saying, and you’ll stay competitive as a business.
Scale your business in a coworking space
Coworking spaces are ideal for startups and small companies that want to grow. As a result if you choose the right coworking space and support your staff with the right guidance, you can rapidly scale your business while staying cohesive as a team.
Nexus Hub offers flexible workspaces at an affordable price to small businesses, companies, and startups. To find out more about how our spaces can help you and your team innovate, collaborate and grow, contact us today or explore our website for more information.
