The twenty-first century is definitely a time of great opportunity. Including the probability of realizing yourself in the profession. Every year, active people have more and more opportunities to go beyond the usual framework of the “employer-employee” scheme and to realize their own ideas for business.
Significantly affected the employment sector and modern technology. The presence of a computer with access to the Internet for most people started the development of Internet business, remote work, made popular the services of programming, advertising and website promotion, created excellent conditions for working in various directions of freelance.
One of the difficulties that a novice entrepreneur or freelancer may encounter is the organization of a full-fledged workplace for the most effective activities. What to do if the financial opportunity to rent a decent office is not yet available, and the organization of a workplace at home is impossible for one reason or another? For such cases, there is coworking. What are these, the pros and cons of such centers, how it will help organize the work of a freelancer or a novice businessman - we will consider all this in the article.
general information
Like most concepts that come from the English language, it accurately reflects the essence of the concept of “coworking” definition. The meaning of the word co-working in the literal translation from English is “jointly working”. In this case, we are talking about a large room equipped with everything necessary for full-fledged office work, in which a place can be provided on a rental basis to a freelancer or a group of aspiring entrepreneurs. You might think for the first time faced with the concept of "coworking" that this is no different from a regular office. However, it is not. The main difference is that people working in coworking are not connected in any way with each other by their common work, organization or bosses.
When renting a workplace in a coworking center, a person continues to be an independent “free worker” with a convenient individual schedule, while acquiring all the advantages of working in an office: the necessary equipment, a convenient workplace, access to fast Internet, a relaxed working environment, and most importantly, a living communication, often impossible in the home.
The story of the idea of "collaboration"
The first coworking center appeared more than ten years ago. The author of the idea to combine the best qualities of freelancing and work in an equipped office was a young American, Brad Newberg, a programmer by profession. Initially, he simply offered a group of freelancers inexpensive jobs in a rented building. As this area has developed, by studying the needs of clients using coworking services, it has become possible to optimize working conditions. In addition to a simple desktop rental, many additional functions have appeared in coworking centers.
What services do coworking centers provide?
Among the proposed are the following:
- The first and main service, of course, is the provision of a workplace with all necessary office furniture, office equipment and communications. Also included in the rental are consumables: ink and paper for printer and fax, cooler water and more.
- Receptionist and / or secretary.
- Storage area. A small lockable individual closet that allows you to get rid of the daily transportation of necessary things from home to the coworking center and vice versa. May be included in rental conditions.
- Conference room, meeting room.The reason businessmen of any level are actively renting large premises. From this perspective, coworking - what is it? An indispensable place to work with clients. In coworking centers seminars, workshops, presentations and other events are held. Also, these premises are often rented by representatives of nonresident or foreign companies that do not have a representative office in the city.
- Common areas. The standard set of a coworking center is a kitchen, a relaxation room and a so-called loud zone, where you can, for example, talk on the phone without creating inconvenience to the roommates. Additionally, various coworking centers can have showers, laundry, gym and much more.
- Children's room. The room in which the child will stay under the supervision of the teacher and animators, while mom or dad are working. This service is incredibly in demand, given the large number of freelancers among parents who are not able to get full time because of the need to take care of children.
- Services of experts and specialists. Lawyers, finance or tax specialists, experts in a particular industry often constantly cooperate with a coworking center. Their services are in most cases provided for a fee. The convenience is that there is no need for coworking participants to spend time independently looking for the right specialist.
- Seminars, workshops, trainings for coworking participants, including free ones.
These services are the most common, they are present in most centers. However, we can say, exploring the advertising sites of the centers that carry out coworking, that this is not a complete list of what is included in the lease. For example: in some centers there are workshops that provide tools and equipment for manual labor, and “car-sharing” is quite popular in Europe, that is, a client can “lend money” to other members of the coworking center while it’s working .
Coworking visa
There is an international program uniting individual centers providing coworking. What it is? More than two hundred coworking centers around the world are united in the Coworking Visa program. It allows tenants of one participating center to work in another for free for three days. Participation in this program automatically increases the rating of the coworking center. Coworking Visa Centers can be found in 36 countries.
The advantages of such a rental
So, we know about coworking, that this is such a place where a person pays for the opportunity to work, that is, use the workplace and all that is included in the rental price. Why do so many people prefer to rent a workplace rather than sit, for example, at home, at their own desk? The fact is that coworking has a number of advantages:
- Many participants recognize that the business atmosphere improves work efficiency and helps to tune in to work. Being at home, it is more difficult not to be distracted by other things, and if a person does not live alone, then it is simply impossible to achieve complete silence and concentration during work.
- Availability of necessary equipment. Coworking is fully equipped with comfortable furniture, office equipment, which may be necessary, among other things, the cost of electricity, communication, consumables are already included in the rent and cost much more profitable.
- Communication with other people. It is not only about simple human communication, although it is important. In the context of coworking, it is easier to establish business relations, look for clients or recruit a team, attend seminars and trainings, adopt the necessary experience or get advice.
- The ability to conduct business meetings with potential partners or customers.
Disadvantages of renting a workplace in a coworking center
The disadvantages of working in such a center are:
- the cost of renting a workplace;
- fare;
- the time it takes to travel.
Coworking centers operating in Moscow
It is logical that a considerable number of coworking centers operate in the Russian capital. Today in Moscow there are more than 20 centers providing coworking services. According to a study by N&F magazine, the Best Coworking Centers in Moscow ranking included:
- CC VAO, address: 3 Pervomaiskaya Street, 3.
- KC Les, address: Rozhdestvensky Boulevard, 10/7.
- CC "Good Republic", address: st. Myasnitskaya, building 13.
- CC "Workstation", address: Leninsky Prospekt, 30A.
- CC Start NuB, address: Bolshaya Novodmitrovskaya, house 36/12.
- CC "Club Nagatino", address: Warsaw highway, 28A.
- CC Flacon Coworking, address: Bolshaya Novodmitrovskaya, 36, 2.
- CC To-do-club, address: Bersenevskaya embankment, 6.
- CC Cabinet Lounge, address: New Square, 7.
- CC "Factory", address: Perevedenovsky lane., 18.
- KC Union Place, address: st. Tverskaya, 12/9.
- CC TimeOffice, address: pl. Bolshaya Sukharevskaya, 16/18.
Prices in the capital
Permanent coworking centers in Moscow are characterized by rather low prices for renting a workplace compared to office premises and service centers. The cost depends on several conditions:
- The cheapest is to rent a "floating" place. In this case, the client takes the table that is currently free. The workplace assigned to a person constantly, for the entire rental period, is much more convenient, but the price will be much higher. The most expensive way is to rent a separate office for work.
- Rental time. It is easy to guess: if you pay for coworking immediately in a month (what is it, we examined above), it will turn out to be much more profitable than depositing money every day. Depending on how long and how often the client is going to use the services of the coworking center, you can determine the tariff that will be most beneficial.
- Location and list of services provided by the coworking center.
Payment can be made not only per hour, day or month of rental, but even per minute. The average price that you have to pay for the month is 4000-13000 rubles. A minute of rent will cost an average of 2 rubles.
Coworking centers in St. Petersburg
The second Russian city in terms of the number of coworking centers currently operating is the Northern Capital. Despite fewer locations offering coworking, Petersburg was the first city to host a center participating in the Coworking Visa international program. There are five constantly functioning centers that provide rental of individual jobs.
Addresses on which the centers carrying out coworking (St. Petersburg) are located:
- Ligovsky prospekt, house 74;
- 70 Obukhov Defense Ave.
- st. Marat, d. 36-38;
- st. Red cadet, house 25ZH;
- st. Plutalova building 23.
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