https://www.theguardian.

com/sustainable-business/2017/apr/24/co-working-spaces-
are-the-future-of-work-but-that-could-be-a-good-thing

Co-working spaces are the future of work but that could be a good thing

They can be noisy but co-working spaces also offer an environment where
professionals can wait out the volatility of the job market

Co-working provides freelancers with a community and have become an attractive

choice for landlords, real estate agents and other firms looking to fill floorspace.

Tim Dunlop
Mon 24 Apr 2017

The growing phenomenon of co-working spaces – places where individuals can rent a desk
of their own while sharing a range of other facilities with their co-tenants – is as indicative of
the changing nature of work as almost any metric you care to name.

Although many see the casualisation of the workforce that this growth represents as an
inherently bad thing – rightly focusing on the way in which technology is tending to convert
full-time work into part-time “gigs” – there may well be a big upside. Co-working is a model
that gives workers themselves, the digital nomads of gig economy, more control over their
working lives.

How big is the sector? Small Business Labs, an organisation that monitors it around the
world, suggests that the number of people renting such spaces will grow globally from just
under 1m in 2016 to nearly 4m in 2020. According to research by user experience
researchers Melissa Gregg and Thomas Lodato, co-working can be a positive choice for
many freelancers . They argue that, in part, such workers are seeking “relief from the
emotional demands of the corporate office”. Co-working spaces, they write, “expanded
significantly in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008/9”, adding this “style of work
emerged in response to the slow plod of austerity, hollowed-out corporations,
underemployment and career insecurity”. They argue that “co-working spaces met a
growing demand for care and fulfilment as much as employment”.

So is co-working a good thing in itself or simply a rational response to negative changes in

traditional workplaces?

Gregg, who is principal engineer in the Business Client Research and Strategy Client
Computing Group at Intel Corporation, says with all the variations of experience there is no
simple answer to that. Still, she says, “I regard co-working as the most optimistic example
we have of conducting enterprise on our own terms. I like that it is often an experience of
work that is determined by workers themselves.”

Isolation is one of the key problems that arises for freelancers and providing this sort of
human contact – a community of fellow nomads – has become the secret sauce of the co-
working industry, a large part of what makes it attractive. Karen Corr, founder of the Make A
Change organisation, says it would never have got off the ground without the existence of
the Synergize Hub in Bendigo but that it was ultimately the community experience that kept
her there, even as her organisation grew. Travel blogger Monika Pietrowski writes that after
“a solid stint in the corporate world, I gave up the security, the scrutiny and the stress for a
nomadic lifestyle”. She says that co-working communities have been central to this change
and, although it can be hit or miss, the “biggest advantage for me is the people interaction
and social setting”.

Gregg and Lodato write: “Co-working spaces provide an environment in which professionals
can anticipate, withstand and perhaps even wait out the volatility of the competitive job
market that surrounds them.” So do they expect the labour market to return to a more
traditional form, with less of the sort “gig” work that suits co-working?
“Not exactly,” Gregg says. “I think there is a pervasive sense of caution right now that co-
working is a speculative economy in a classic sense – it is dependent on real estate and
property value.” Indeed co-working spaces have become an attractive choice for landlords,
real estate agents and other firms looking to fill floorspace as more traditional tenants, such
as retailers, close down. US figures indicate co-working may account for as much as 2% of
the office market by 2020.

But for those who can “wait out” the job market changes, Gregg thinks they will have
developed something “of long term, resilient value” with the co-working space as the centre
of a useful network that would not otherwise have been available. In fact, the researchers
believe co-working could be a glimpse into a more positive future. They write, “A more just
future of work may have less to do with labour hours, the creation of welfare programs or
the opening of resources and more to do with hospitality: with whom, through what means,
and in which environments we associate and affiliate with fellow workers.”

As attractive as this idea is, it could only work if it was underpinned with more formal means
of security, something like a universal basic income. If co-working is to be anything more
than a temporary response to precarity, don’t we need adequate state welfare measures in
place?

“Absolutely we do,” Gregg says. “But the state manifests differently in context and it is hard
to imagine how this works in Trump’s America, for instance. “Still, I like to think of co-
working in terms of what philosopher Peter Sloterdijk calls ‘co-immunity’ – creating shared
bubbles of protection that allow people the space to conduct the practices that help them
realise their potential.” Nonetheless, she notes, “I don’t pretend that co-working is suitable
for all kinds of workers.” Some freelancers point out that the spaces can be noisy and hard
to work in. Anis Qizilbash, who runs a sales training business, did several six-month stints
but isn’t keen to continue. “I felt uncomfortable and it was hard to concentrate. Often there
would be music playing and, being an introvert, I hated the open-plan workspace.”

There is not escaping the fact that the nature of work is changing, however, so it’s worth
embracing the positive aspects of that change. What constitutes a job is no longer neatly
bound by notions of a career, the nine-to-five, of 40-hour weeks and four-weeks’ holiday
leave, and nor should it be. Flexibility that empowers workers – as opposed to the sort of
“flexibility” imposed from above by employers – should be welcomed and co-working
spaces may enable that sort of change. It could be the testing ground for an entirely
reimagined notion of employment.

“Co-working,” Gregg says, may well be “the millennial’s MBA”.