Coworking spaces blend flexibility, cost-effectiveness, convenience, a sense of community and belonging, autonomy, and control. Additionally, they offer fully-equipped spaces that encourage better focus at work and enhanced productivity apart from offering ample opportunities to ideate, collaborate, and network. All these are factors make people working in these shared office spaces thrive.

Who uses coworking spaces?

• Freelancers: On analyzing the data of 2017 Global Coworking Survey, Deskmag reported that 41% of all coworking space members were still freelancers. Before coworking spaces made their presence felt, freelancers would usually work either from home or a neighborhood café. But isolation, distractions, and demotivation along with the lack of a proper office space adversely affected their productivity. Plug-and-play coworking spaces not only give freelancers a well-equipped office to work from but also help them feel a sense of belonging and stay motivated when working amidst a diverse group of coworkers.
   
• Startups: Compared to traditional offices (rented or leased), coworking spaces offer more convenient and flexible space usage (which may often include 24/7 access) and payment terms. Apart from the cost-effective aspect, the flexibility of scaling up or down based on requirements and the ease of talent acquisition, due to an easily accessible varied talent pool, also make these shared spaces attractive for startups. Additionally, coworking spaces play host to several startup-friendly events and programs like startup incubator and accelerator, mentoring, seed funding, collaboration, and networking events, among others. All these make these shared offices the preferred choice of startups.
   
• Entrepreneurs: Coworking spaces are preferred over traditional offices by many entrepreneurs. Running a business is tough. Setting up an office means making an additional investment for rent/lease, furniture, interior design, IT infrastructure, utilities, etc. Again, there would be a burden of handling tasks like hiring staff to manage office, keep the space clean, stock the pantry, etc. Coworking spaces can take such burdens off the shoulders of an entrepreneur while offering a fully-equipped office space to work from. Thus, with minimal investment and no additional headache or burden, entrepreneurs can focus better on running their business. Opportunities to ideate, collaborate, and network with others are the added benefits, which could help them grow their business.
   
• SMEs: The steep cost of commercial real estate is tough to afford for SMEs. As a result, they’re increasingly choosing coworking spaces to get their employees a fully-equipped shared office space in the neighborhood. Apart from offering the convenience of getting started right away, coworking spaces also score due to their vibrant environment that fosters motivation, innovation, ideation, collaboration, and networking. All these can help SMEs enjoy improved productivity and even stay ahead of the curve with better market insights and innovative offerings.
   
• Enterprises and corporations: Coworking spaces aren’t just for small businesses or freelancers. Contrary to popular belief, several leading market players like Microsoft, Verizon, IBM, and Salesforce – to name a few, now use coworking spaces as an alternative for their remote workers, who had been working from home. According to a 2019 Gensler survey, 14% of corporate workers use shared office spaces regularly. By offering them a sense of community and fostering teamwork, these flexible and vibrant workspaces encourage innovation and motivation, which are crucial to having fulfilling work experience.
   
• Nonprofits: Finding a proper place to work from is a difficult task for budget-conscious nonprofits. Coworking spaces offer them a clean, well-equipped, and conducive work environment that can be the ideal stimulating set-up for nonprofit staff. According to a 2015 report, 83% of nonprofits that used coworking spaces found improvements in their organizational reliability and ability to accomplish goals. Apart from helping nonprofits focus on their job better, shared office spaces can help boost interest in their cause, find talents and resources, and pave the way for ideation, networking, and collaboration. Nonprofits could even tap into the coworking community with the possibility of finding new volunteers, potential donors, and free business advice, among others. All these factors make nonprofits choose coworking spaces.
   
• Consultants: The scope of work of consultants differs from the standard scope of workplace operations. Be it an IT consultant, a chartered accountant, or a lawyer, these professionals have to be on the move frequently to meet their clients and discuss and finalize proposals. To meet their flexible demands, they need a professional space that can match their varying requirements. That’s where coworking spaces fit the bill just right. 
   
• Remote/project-based workers: Several big companies and mid-sized businesses have started giving their employees the flexibility to mostly work remotely. These remote or project-based workers need to go to the office just once or twice a week while working from coworking spaces for the rest of the week. These people prefer shared offices rather than working from home or a café because otherwise, they could find their transition to the office environment difficult. Staying motivated when working amidst a vibrant and creative group of people and enjoying peer-to-peer learning, networking, and collaboration opportunities are other advantages offered by coworking spaces.
   
• Business travelers: Business travelers on the move often choose coworking spaces to stay motivated and get their job done on time. These shared office spaces offer flexible rental options (hourly/daily) for a wide variety of spaces (hot desks, dedicated desks, private cabins, meeting rooms, and conference rooms), thus making it easy to select the one that suits their needs the best. With their ideal blend of a professional environment with cost-effective, easily accessible office facilities, coworking spaces feature high on the priority list of business travelers.
   
• Students: Apart from offering them study desks or cabins, coworking spaces provide students with additional amenities like tea/coffee, printer, scanner, copier, etc. at no additional costs. Students who are entrepreneurs at heart or have future plans to walk down that road could even benefit from amenities like startup accelerator and incubation, networking events, and mentoring, among others. 

Final thoughts

Freelancers, startups, consultants, and others listed above have already embraced coworking. As a growing segment of the modern workforce is set to start working remotely soon, the coworking scenario is predicted to become even more diverse in the future. To know more about coworking spaces of different cities in India click here