Shared offices were, in retrospect, a phenomenon waiting to happen.
First, the rise of flexible working technologies (such as laptops, mobile broadband and numerous web-based collaboration tools) means that there's a whole new market of remote workers (or would-be remote workers - if only they could find somewhere to work). This new market incorporates the creative industries such as design and journalism, which tend to be made up of one and two-man bands, but also the growing army of freelance IT workers, translators, architects, sales consultants and so on, plus a huge number of field-based workers such as sales people and project managers.
All these people either do not have access to large corporate offices, or simply live some distance from a large corporate office and just don't need to be there on a day-to-day basis.
Traditional thinking is that all these people will be "homeworkers". What's actually happening, though, is that many of these workers don't actually want to work from home. It can be too noisy, too distracting (particularly where children are involve), too difficult to separate out home expenses from work expenses, and - more often than not - home working is simply not suitable for professional work both on a practical and mental level. Practically, the dining room table is no replacement for an office space (not to mention the health and safety implications of risk assessing a living room - we won't even go there). Mentally, many people are much more productive in a professional work-oriented environment.
This new market needs somewhere to work (get me out of my house!), but it doesn't want to commit to an office lease and a serviced office space can simply be too expensive.
From a business point of view, the reasons for renting out your spare office space can be compelling
Secondly, this new market is matched by (1) a growing amount of spare office space as a result of business closures and redundancies and (2) a growing need for businesses to reduce wastage and monetise spare capacity.
And that's when the brainwave happens: why don't we rent out our spare desk space? From a business point of view, the reasons for renting out your spare office space can be compelling. Not only do you open up a new revenue stream (stats from Desk Space Genie show that the average rent for a spare desk is £170 a month, and can be significantly more in central London), but you get all the benefits of a busy office space which is full of professional, highly motivated workers (I say that because self-employed and remote workers often set an excellent example of work ethic) and you might even strike lucky and get tenants with complementary skills (how often would it be handy to have a designer or an accountant in the next room?).
Giles Kendrick, who runs a desk space scheme in Cambridge, comments: "We've let six spare desks in our office over the past two years, and it's made a real difference to our small business. The income from the desks covers our office overheads and allows us to invest more money in our actual business. Over and above that, the guys who rent desks have been a really positive influence in our office environment; the scheme has helped to create a buzzy atmosphere and we actually now use several of the deskers as contractors to our own business."
When we launched www.deskspacegenie.co.uk on a whim in March 2009, we estimated that there were 200 desk schemes in the UK. In the first three months, we've already had nearly 3,000 spare desks listed on the website and new ones are added every single day.
There are obvious drawbacks to letting out desks, which may just be too much for some larger companies. You'll need to consider security, permission from your landlord, and a certain amount of administration for example.
The trend to share offices has been kickstarted by the current recession and is providing welcome revenue for an increasingly large number of small businesses while meeting the needs of an important "hidden" market. I see no reason, though, why this new way of working won't outlast the current economic circumstances - the internet has empowered people to once again work near where they live, and that can only be a positive move for British businesses and British society.
For more information visit www.deskspacegenie.co.uk
