Recently, the amount of businesses switching from physical offices to a virtual office has grown dramatically. There are still some skeptics of the virtual office model, but in the future, this model is going to continue to grow and thrive. Here are some reasons you can expect this method of working to continue to flourish in the coming years.
1. Lower cost.
This is a big reason that many companies switch to a virtual office, and it’s a good one. By switching to a virtual office, you’ll be saving a monumental amount of money – all of the money that would have gone to rent, utilities, furniture, machines, and other various office amenities. All you’ll have to pay for is your virtual office service plan, which is a fraction of the cost of maintaining a physical office.
2. Widens your pool of potential employees.
Now, instead of looking for the best workers in your city, you can start looking for the best employees in your state or even your country, if you’re willing to manage multiple time zones. Having a virtual office also widens your pool of potential employees to those who work on a freelance basis or prefer working from home as opposed to commuting to a physical office.
3. More autonomy for workers.
Some proponents of the traditional office model claim that a big benefit to it is that workers are more productive. However, studies have shown that workers who have more autonomy consistently produce better results than workers who are micromanaged by their boss. Therefore, more autonomy for employees means a more productive business.
4. Allows for more flexibility and adaptability.
With a virtual office, you can be more adaptable and flexible than you can be in a physical office. Adaptability is a crucial quality to helping a business survive. Using a Columbus virtual office to accept your calls and mail, for example, can allow you work freely around the state of Ohio or across the country.
5. Avoid outside influences.
When you’re working in a physical office, outside influences like a traffic accident, rush hour, or bad weather can greatly affect both your office and your employees’ ability to make it to your office. However, when working with a virtual office, nothing short of a large-scale natural disaster can have the same effect. It doesn’t matter if the roads are impossible to drive on because of a snowstorm, your employees can still show up and get work done.
6. Allows for more control.
Running a business with a virtual office lets you have a much larger amount of control over both your business and your own life. You can rely on the physical office space that comes with your virtual office when you need it – but otherwise you have control over your time and where you work.
7. Lets you focus on results, not the amount of time spent working.
Another criticism that proponents of physical offices have against virtual offices is that employees might not spend as much time working. This is entirely true, but in turn begs the question: What’s more important: the amount of time spent working, or the results produced from work? If an employee can spend 20 minutes on a task and sufficiently complete it, why make them spend an hour? This cuts down on busywork that’s created purely to fill hours, and makes sure that your business is focused on what really matters: Results!
Courtney Ramirez
Research Analyst, Pacific Business Centers (rebranded as Pacific Workplaces)
Courtney’s research for Pacific Business Centers focuses on tracking emerging business trends and best practices – with an emphasis on how they affect business operations, technology, and the future of work trends.