The rise and popularity of the virtual office & landlords

As the UK, along with the rest of the world, went back to work after the Covid19 pandemic, we saw an upsurge of people putting more and more importance on their health and mind when considering their day-to-day working life. Studies have shown that working from home, or a hybrid of working from home and in the office has become a normal consideration for many and can in many instances improve job satisfaction, and lower work-related stress. Due to this increase and shift in how many work, we have seen the rise in popularity of the virtual office.

Firstly what is a virtual office? It is a way to provide a business with a physical address but without that business having to take on more staff, or a long lease. Virtual offices often provide similar services, meaning employees can work from anywhere, but still have a mailing address, sometimes phone answering services, meeting rooms, and other office administrative services.

So what are the main reasons you might consider a virtual office?

Reduced Costs

Firstly, as mentioned, it means you don't have to buy an office building, or sign a long lease on an office space to run your business from. This in turn means your overheads are significantly lowered as virtual office rents are generally a lot lower than a physical office (from £8/$10 a month, or as little as £0.99 a week, depending on the services required), you also dont have to spend money on furnishing an office, allowing you to spend that money on other areas of your business. It also means you don't have to hire extra staff to 'man' the office, such as a receptionist or extra administrative staff, keeping staffing costs down.

Expand your Representation

You may want your business to be represented in several areas or different market places, and a virtual office allows you to spread your company presence without taking on lots of added expenditure.

Privacy

Some small business owners want to keep their private residence private, allowing you to register a business address, and not have to put your home address on Companies House (UK).

Flexibility

A virtual office also gives your employees the opportunity to work from anywhere, giving them more flexibility, which potentially can lead to better creativity and productivity.

Other benefits include lower employee sick days, as the staff interaction is reduced, so is the potential for airborne disease to be passed around the office, less staff off ill, leading again to more productivity. With less staff interaction, you also lower the potential for employee conflict, with employees able to contact each other via phone, or video conferencing, as it is hard to completely eradicate employee conflict when you have an office full of people.

Having a virtual office also means that employees can work from home if required, meaning less money spent by employees on commuting to and from their work place, also increasing productivity, less time travelling, and job satisfaction, being able to spend more time with their families, rather than sitting, upwards of 2hrs a day going to and from their place of work.

There are obvious downsides to a virtual office, which include the lack of a physical office or space, as some virtual offices don't have meeting rooms that can be used, and as a business if you think in the future you will need space to meet each other, or clients then this has to considered in their plans for expansion, and so a virtual office may not be suitable. A virtual office means less social interaction, and so with more and more staff there is less of a chance of building a community, some people thrive on physical interaction, and the team may not be as strong compared to working together. There is certainly something to be said to being able to bounce ideas off each other quickly in an office based environment. Working from home requires the individual to be motivated and strong minded, and to get on with the work as and when required, it also requires the company to trust those to do their work as requested.

In the UK virtual offices are extremely popular and are a legal way for any business to trade, whilst making huge savings, as long as they are legally compliant with the Companies Act 2006, this basically means that the actual physical registered address has to be able to receive official mail from Companies House and HM Revenue and Customs.

Some landlords and investors have used virtual offices to register as their 'business address' for privacy reasons and to ensure a hands-free solution to growing their portfolio.

For more information about virtual office space please contact our trusted third-party experts in this sector, INMARKA