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By Bond Collective Staff

If you’re looking for a way to set up your office for maximum flexibility and productivity, the shared desk arrangement may be the ideal solution.

In this article, we discuss how the concept of the shared desk differs from other workspace arrangements and give you tips for implementing it in your business.

What Is A Shared Desk?

A shared desk is a workspace shared by two, three, or more employees on a rotating basis. While this may sound similar to other desk-sharing options (discussed below), it is really quite different.

In a true shared desk arrangement, your business assigns one workspace (e.g., a desk and a chair) to multiple team members.

Those team members take turns working different shifts or working remotely so that only one person occupies the desk at any given time.

For example, on Monday, Parvati works from the shared desk during normal business hours while Russel, Rob, Cirie, and Amanda work from home.

When Parvati is finished working, she removes all of her belongings and cleans the desk space in preparation for the next workday.

On Tuesday, Russel works from the shared desk during normal business hours while Rob, Cirie, Amanda, and Parvati work from home.

The cycle rotates through to Friday, when Amanda works from the shared desk during normal business hours while Parvati, Russel, Rob, and Cirie work from home.

Another option is to alternate the shared desk between two team members who each work in the office every other day.

In that arrangement, Amber works at the desk Monday, Wednesday, and Friday while Colby works at home. On Tuesday and Thursday, Colby works at the desk while Amber works at home.

There are many ways to organize a shared desk between team members. It all depends on the number of employees your business has, the shifts they work, and whether or not you offer a remote-work option.

Shared Desk Vs. Hoteling

Hoteling is a workspace seating arrangement wherein your business assigns a specific desk to a specific team member for several days, weeks, or months.

The team member has exclusive access to that desk for the duration of the time assigned. When compared to the shared desk system, hoteling is much less static.

Team member A may occupy desk one for two weeks and then transition to desk two for a further two weeks. Team member B may occupy desk three for five days and then transition to desk six for a month.

The way you arrange your hoteling system depends on your business’s and employees’ needs, along with other factors.

Shared Desk Vs. Hot Desking

With hot desking, workspaces are occupied (or allocated, if your HR department oversees the program) on a first-come, first-served basis.

Desks, tables, and chairs have no permanent owner, and team members choose whatever is available that fits their needs.

Because of the flexible nature of hot desking, who is working where can change at a moment’s notice. What’s more, these changes tend to occur several times per day as employees switch from one workspace to another.

This is in stark contrast to both the shared desk system and hoteling, which are both much more permanent arrangements. A shared desk assignment could last years, while hoteling can stretch into multiple months if the situation works for all parties involved.

Hot desking, on the other hand, allows team members to change where they work from day to day and even hour to hour.

Tips For Implementing Desk Sharing

1) Talk To Your Team First

If your business is considering the transition from a traditional workplace model to a more flexible work arrangement, talk to your team first about what the change entails.

Desk sharing isn’t second nature to everyone, and switching from a personal desk to one that multiple people use may take some getting used to.

If team members express concerns, consider transitioning slowly (to one or two shared desks) instead of going all-in right away.

Give your employees time to see what it’s all about, how it works, and how they can benefit from the arrangement before switching everyone over.

2) Plan Your Shared Desk Space

When switching from one seating option to another, take the opportunity to incorporate office space planning into the mix.

Office space planning is the process of organizing furniture and function in such a way so as to maximize space and improve the efficiency and productivity of the employees who occupy it.

Essentially, it’s using different methods to set up your work environment for optimized space usage.

Planning where each shared desk will go — rather than distributing them willy nilly — before you spend a single dime or move a single chair will help your business create the perfect workspace for your team.

3) Incorporate A BYOD Program

BYOD is an abbreviation (or, more specifically, an initialism) for the phrase Bring Your Own Device.

BYOD refers to the practice of allowing employees to use their personal devices — anything from smartphones to desktops to simple USB drives — to access business networks, work-related systems, and sensitive or confidential data.

Incorporating a BYOD program in your business makes the shared desk arrangement easier to organize and execute.

Shared desks no longer have to come with their own dedicated computers because team members supply their own devices.

4) Include Adjustable-Height Desks

When planning your shared desk system, consider including adjustable-height desks into the mix.

There are many options to choose from, including:

• Sit-to-stand adapters for your regular desks

• Manually adjusted sit-to-stand desks

• Powered sit-to-stand desks

Whichever version you select, the flexibility will give your team the option and ability to customize how they want to work — and improve their focus, creativity, and productivity in the process.

5) Offer Various Seating Options

As with the ability to switch from sitting to standing, offering various seating options is a great way to help your team stay comfortable and engaged in the work before them.

Include such items as:

Ergonomic chairs

• Stools

• Saddle chairs

• Balance balls

• Kneeling chairs

• Pedestal stools

With all those choices, your employees are sure to find an alternative that works for them.

6) Cut The Cords

With wireless technology making mobility easier than ever before, cutting the cords is a great way to make your shared desk arrangement more adaptable to your team’s needs.

When desks aren’t tethered by ethernet and phone cables, your employees can move them around at will to facilitate collaboration and group work of all kinds.

In most cases, your team will still need power to drive the devices they bring to work, so you’ll have to outfit your office space with plenty of outlets.

For maximum flexibility, consider installing power boxes in the walls, floors, and hanging from the ceiling.

7) Create Space For Storing Shared Documents

Creating space to store shared documents is part of a successful shared desk experience.

If your business uses a lot of hard copy paperwork, create physical space for files and the like that all employees can access when necessary.

Remember to emphasize the importance of returning any shared papers to their proper location so that the next person who needs them can find them easily.

If your business makes use of digital documents, create a private and secure cloud space that employees can access from the shared desk in the main office, their living room, or wherever they choose to work.

8) Assign Lockers

The flexibility that comes with shared desks means that your team members won’t be able to store items in their workspace when they leave the office.

Assigning lockers to each employee is the solution for this issue.

And don’t feel like the spaces have to be some elaborate setup like the locker rooms we’re used to from high school athletics.

Even a block of cubbies tucked away in a corner is plenty of space to store the items your employees need when they’re out of the office.

9) Encourage Cleanliness And Organization

The very nature of the shared desk system means that after finishing work for the day, the team member is obliged to take all their personal items with them, leave the desk clean and organized, and perhaps wipe it down with an antibacterial wipe before walking away.

If you’ve just recently switched to having multiple people share the same workspace, this may take some getting used to. From working in a traditional office for most of their adult life, they may be operating under a different organizational paradigm.

As such, you may need to encourage a different type of cleanliness and organization — one more suitable to the high-traffic, flexible environment.

10) Eliminate The Stationary Telephone

In a shared desk work environment, the stationary telephone — the hard-wired, landline kind at each desk — is no longer feasible, nor even practical.

Three or more team members may work at the same desk throughout the course of a single day. With such a flexible schedule, the odds of reaching a single employee on a stationary telephone drop dramatically.

Unless your clients and customers know to only call the landline number between certain hours in order to reach a specific employee, your best bet is to get rid of the stationary telephone altogether.

Instead, replace those stationary telephones with company-issued cell phones so your clients and customers can reach specific team members regardless of where they’re working.

11) Create Rules To Cover Shared Desk Etiquette

We touched on this briefly in the Encourage Cleanliness And Organization section earlier in the article, but you will have to create rules to cover the shared desk etiquette in your office.

Wiping down the desk, chair, and other “public” surfaces with an antibacterial wipe before you leave is just one example. The schedule for who works when and where is another.

As you transition from traditional office to shared workspace, make the rules and etiquette flexible at first until you find out what works best for your team.

Once you find the best fit for your business, formalize everything by adding this information to your employee handbook — or creating a unique handbook just for this situation.

A few months later, revisit the rules and etiquette to see if they’re still working. And don’t be afraid to tweak them if they’re not.

12) Make The Change Gradual

Your entire team will be best served if you make a gradual, rather than an abrupt, change from traditional office to shared desk environment.

If you switch your entire office between one workday and the next, your employees may experience a bit of shock and a drop in their productivity.

Switch a few desks at a time to the new arrangement and give your team time to get familiar with the new way of working.

13) Appoint A Shared Desk Manager

Your team will have questions, and perhaps a few growing pains, as they transition into the shared desk system.

To make the transition smoother and more successful, appoint a manager to oversee conflicts, uncertainties, and disputes that may arise. Be sure to give this individual the authority to make decisions based on what’s best for the team.

14) Ask For Feedback

One of the best ways to find out if the new system is working is to ask for feedback from those who use it.

Ask them such questions as:

• What do they like and dislike about the arrangement?

• What isn’t meeting their needs or expectations?

• What would they do to improve the system?

Armed with this information, you can then make changes that benefit everyone involved.

15) Preserve Open Space

It’s very tempting to pack as many desks as possible into your work area, but doing so is overwhelming — not to mention difficult to navigate.

Whenever possible, preserve some open space so your team members have easy access to other parts of the office and can gather and talk with their coworkers.

16) Carve Out Quiet Areas

When setting up the shared desk environment for your business, think in terms of zones of specific types of work.

Quiet areas are one of the most important zones your business can create within its larger workspace. Do your best to locate said quiet areas as far from the hustle and bustle of regular business activity as possible.

This may require creating an entirely separate space away from where you’ve situated your shared desks.

Making it a separate space gives team members the opportunity to work elsewhere if coworkers nearby are working together, on a phone call, or doing something that distracts from the work at hand.

17) Set Aside Collaboration Space

The other essential work zone to consider when transitioning from a traditional office space to a shared desk environment is collaboration.

A big part of the way your business operates successfully depends on groups of people working together. As such, you want to set aside plenty of space for that activity.

As we mentioned in the previous section, keep the collaboration space and the quiet area as far apart as possible so that the noise and activity from the former don’t disturb the peace and quiet of the latter.

18) Pay Attention To Lighting

Natural light in your workspaces is always best, but it’s not always possible to arrange things so that all your shared desks are close to a window.

If moving things around so that your entire office benefits from natural light isn’t feasible, try adding an adjustable-wavelength lamp to each shared desk as a supplement to your current lighting. That way, your team members can customize the light to stimulate their productivity.

Need more information on lighting for your shared desk layout? Check out these articles from the Bond Collective blog:

• Office Lighting: Everything You Need To Know For Your Office Space

• 9 Office Design Tips From The Design Team At Bond Collective

19) Harness The Power Of Plants

Making a shared work environment successful is about more than just the desks and who works where and when. It’s also about the productivity that layout inspires.

One of the easiest and least expensive ways to stimulate productivity in your office is to harness the power of plants.

Research shows that teams working in sight of even a single plant are more productive than their plantless counterparts — even in the lean workspaces occupied by entrepreneurs and startups.

If you have a brown thumb instead of a green thumb, keep it simple by arranging a few small plants on the windowsills in your team’s workspace or clustering them in a drab corner of the room.

For more suggestions on using plants as part of your shared desk environment, take a few minutes to read these helpful articles from the Bond Collective blog:

• 11 Low-Maintenance Plants To Transform Your Office

• The 7 Best Office Plants To Enhance Any Workspace

20) Bring The Outdoors In

A sterile office space is no fun to work in every day. Instead, make the workspace inspiring by bringing the outdoors in.

Natural accents such as exposed concrete and wood floors, reclaimed wood desktops, and painted steel are simple ways to give your team’s working environment a touch of the world outside.

The different textures and colors also have the added benefit of making team members feel more comfortable. And when employees are more comfortable, they’re more focused, creative, and productive.

The Shared Desk Done Right

It can be daunting switching from a traditional one-person, one-desk system to a shared desk arrangement, and you may be unsure whether it’s really right for your business.

With Bond Collective, you can try out the concept before you make changes in your own office. In fact, modern coworking spaces offer a variety of workspace options to fit your needs.

Bond Collective, for example, offers shared desks, hot desking, hoteling (dedicated desks), conference rooms, and even private offices (or suites) all in one beautifully decorated work environment so your business has the space to take on any job, large or small.

Bond Collective also offers industry-leading amenities you can’t get anywhere else, including:

• Lightning-fast WiFi

• Photo and sound studio (Gowanus only)

• Guest reception and greeting

• Regular on-site cleaning

• Mail service

• Complimentary beer, coffee, tea, water, and fresh fruit

• Other food and beverages for sale

• Office showers with towel service

• Bike storage

• Rooftop lounge area

• Mothers’ rooms

• Pet-friendly environments

• Curated and networking events

Whether you’re a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, a digital nomad, a startup, a small business, or a team of 100 or more, Bond Collective can accommodate you, your team, or your entire business with shared desk options that will save you both money and time when compared to a traditional office.

Visit any one of Bond Collective’s many locations in the United States, including workspaces in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas. Or call us today to find out more about everything we have to offer.

And while you’re at it, schedule a tour to experience first-hand how the boutique work environments at Bond Collective can benefit your business.

By Brett Hafstad

As you move along the South branch of the Chicago River, it acts as a timeline of architecture in the city with each block you pass. Although the Willis, or Sears, Tower dominates the view, there’s one other building that’s sure to catch your eye due to its resemblance to a large throne. The Civic Opera Building has been a staple of Chicago Architecture since the 1920’s. A bit more tucked away in today’s skyline, this pinnacle of art-deco architecture was the standout building of it’s time. So what part does the Opera Building have to play in Chicago’s history, and where did it get its design?

Following the Great Fire, Chicago gained the nickname “the Second City” thanks to how quickly it was able to rebuild and bounce back. In the early 20th century, it also became the birthplace of the skyscraper as the need to grow upwards became necessary. New York was well established and a large population of Americans and immigrants started to move west to Chicago including Samuel Insull. After being passed on for the GE President position, Insull felt it was time for a change in scenery and business. He rose to become President of the Chicago Edison Electric company, which would later become ComEd, still seen as the largest electricity provider in the area. He and his wife, a broadway star in her youth, had an affinity for the arts which led to the building of the Civic Opera House. Insull decided on the location thanks to its proximity to transportation in and out of the city, a trait it still holds to this day. Art Deco was becoming widely popular in the 1920’s, especially in Chicago, and Insull’s vision for the Opera House would certainly inherit those traits. He hired a popular architecture firm, still considered as playing a major role in the city’s culture. Some of their additional work that can still be seen in the city include Union Station, the Wrigley Building, Merchandise Mart, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Field Museum, among others. 

The Civic Opera Building was built to operate as two separate buildings, with the base hosting the Opera House and a 45 story tower that would play host to companies and stores to help offset the expenses of the building. From its completion in 1929 to the 1950’s, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city sitting just 50 feet shorter than the tallest; an odd trait for an Opera House to say the least. Adorned with 3,563 seats, the Opera House remains the second largest in North America to this day.

None of this explains the throne-like shape that the Opera Building has become known for though. So where did the inspiration come from? One story revolves around Insull’s wife, who had grown frustrated after being denied Opera parts by New York’s Metropolitan Opera.It’s rumored that this was the catalyst to move to Chicago and created a grand Opera House for his wife to perform in. This story has little depth though as Insull’s wife was a broadway performer, not an Opera Singer. However, this urban legend would loosely become the groundwork for Orson Welles’ film Citizen Kane. There is a much more believable story though often thought to be true because it’s based around Insull’s actual life events. After being passed over for the GE Presidency position, he moved to Chicago to begin his endeavors at the helm of a new company. His love for Opera led to building of the Civic Opera House and he requested the design to be based around a throne facing west, signifying that he has turned his back on New York City. Whether that thought process was involved or not, when later asked about the reasoning behind the shape, one of the architects involved said that it was all nonsense and to fulfill their building size needs, they had to go higher as there was no surrounding land to grow on to. No matter the back story around the shape, it’s certainly become an iconic building in this city’s great architectural story.

Bond Collective opened the first of our two shared workspace Chicago locations in this historical building in 2020, amidst a global pandemic, with full faith that this vibrant center of art and performance would once again team with business. Sprawling across two floors, this location boasts show stopping lounges, private offices, and conference rooms designed to the same exacting standards of comfort, style, and elegance that is Bond Collective. We welcome you to stop in any time to see why we fell in love with the Civic Opera Building.

By Bond Collective Staff

Hot desking and hoteling are two popular seating options for individuals and teams that can revolutionize the way you do business.

While these workspace arrangements are most practical and popular in collaborative environments, businesses that operate out of their own space can implement them to good advantage as well.

In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits and drawbacks of hot desking and hoteling as they relate to coworking spaces, but the same information applies to seating arrangements in dedicated and private offices everywhere.

The Modern Office Model

In the more traditional office model of the past, the HR department assigned each team member their own workspace based on what was available at the time.

Each employee worked from their own personal space (their desk) until they left the company, moved to a different job, or HR decided to shake things up by rearranging the office and reassigning desks.

In the modern coworking office model where many different individuals, teams, and businesses work in the same collective space, the traditional office model just doesn’t work.

The shift from traditional office model to coworking office model necessitated a new kind of workspace allocation.

Enter: hot desking and hoteling.

What Is Hot Desking?

In hot desking, workspaces are allocated or occupied on a first-come, first-served basis. Desks, tables, and chairs have no permanent “owner,” and workers use whatever is available that fits their needs.

These arrangements can change at a moment’s notice — and tend to do so several times a day — as people come and go. Hot desking is very similar to the way many restaurants operate.

Customers arrive at whatever time suits them in the hopes of finding a seat to accommodate the size of their group. The restaurant may have something available, or they may not.

If they do have something available, it might not be the customer’s first choice (a table instead of a booth), but at least they’ll have a place to eat.

If the restaurant doesn’t have anything available, the customer can choose to try another business or wait for space to open up. Hot desking works in much the same way.

What Is Hoteling?

In hoteling, workspaces are reserved ahead of time — typically for longer durations of several days, a week, or a month — via a booking app or service.

These arrangements are much more static and don’t change as often as hot desking arrangements.

Going back to the restaurant analogy, hoteling is like calling a few days in advance to reserve a table for a specific time so that you can arrive and be seated without delay.

Hoteling provides individuals and teams with more choice and control over where they work. With the right system in place, you can even search for team members working at the same time and reserve a desk nearby to make collaboration easier.

The Benefits And Drawback Of Each

Benefits Of Hot Desking

1) Short-Notice Availability

Hot desking is ideal in certain cases because it’s available on short notice. Individuals or teams can just walk in, find a space, and get to work.

Hot desking is perfect for freelancers and team members working from home who need a change of scenery or don’t want to work at their kitchen table or the local coffee house anymore.

It’s also an excellent solution for travelers who need a business-centric place to work for a few hours before their hotel room is ready or their flight leaves.

2) Improved Cleanliness And Organization

The very nature of hot desking prevents individuals from accumulating personal belongings and clutter in and around their workspaces.

Hot deskers relinquish the space when they’re finished to make room for the next person. Anything left behind could be lost.

This lends itself to a cleaner, more organized, and professional-looking workspace that can help inspire productivity, focus, and engagement. It also makes disinfecting and sterilizing furniture much easier.

3) Employee Autonomy

A big part of the remote work concept revolves around autonomy — employees are free to work when and where they choose. The hot desking arrangement supports this autonomy like few other arrangements can.

The simple act of basing your team in a hot desking workspace communicates that you trust your employees to run their own projects and manage their own schedules. That’s a big boost to your team’s productivity.

Additionally, hot desking all but demands that team members exercise more responsibility and take ownership of their work.

4) Controlled Costs

Setting up an office is an expensive proposition, especially when it comes to the long-term lease.

Working from a hot desking arrangement helps control costs and keeps your team focused on the work at hand rather than whether or not you’re using your space to its full potential.

A month-to-month agreement in a hot desking environment, for example, allows you to reduce the amount of collaborative workspace you occupy when things get tight so you can save money for the lean times.

With a long-term lease, you are locked into a set payment that won’t change as your business does. That can be a real detriment to team morale and productivity when you’re trying to remain effective but all you can think about is the upcoming lease payment.

5) Inspiration

When your team works on one product or service hour after hour, day after day, they tend to form a tunnel vision of sorts.

It’s necessary to do this from time to time, but when they’re stuck with the same problem over and over again, their creativity, drive, and productivity begin to suffer.

In a hot desking arrangement, there’s never any shortage of inspiration. You and your team are always surrounded by unique individuals with new and innovative ideas.

Strike up a conversation in the kitchen or the lounge with a freelance coder, writer, or entrepreneur, and you’re likely to find ways of thinking that you hadn’t considered before.

6) A Work Frame Of Mind

For fledgling businesses, first-time managers, and new teams alike, it can be difficult to take the business seriously and maintain productivity when you’re doing most of the work at your kitchen table or a corner booth at the local diner.

But when you make the switch to hot desking in a collaborative workspace, you and your team members create a work frame of mind that you can’t generate any other way.

A work mindset means better focus, improved creativity, increased motivation, and better productivity to help you get the job done right the first time.

Drawbacks Of Hot Desking

1) Possibility Of No Space

One of the main drawbacks of hot desking is that there may not be any space available when you want to work. You’ll either have to wait for something to open up, or you’ll have to go somewhere else to work.

It’s like walking into a five-star restaurant at 7:00 p.m. on a Friday night with no reservation in the hopes of getting a table. Chances are, it’s not going to happen.

This can seriously affect your productivity for the worse and cause you to lose time that you may not have.

2) Limited Choices

With hot desking, available workspaces may not be conducive to productivity. The only open desk may be in a particularly noisy area with lots of activity going on.

If you need to concentrate and focus, the discussions and comings-and-goings of those around you can cause an unnecessary distraction that may prevent you from giving your full attention to the job at hand.

3) Security Concerns

If you or your team members deal with confidential documents on a regular basis, the hot desking arrangement can lead to security concerns.

The very flexibility that makes hot desking so beneficial also means that you’ll need to take extra care when handling sensitive documents.

The comings-and-goings of those around you — not to mention the very real risk of leaving private documents lying exposed on your desk (or forgetting them in the printer or copy machine) — make hot desking and document security a very real issue.

4) Disrupts The Office Hierarchy

Moving to a job with more responsibility (a.k.a. moving up in the office hierarchy), has long been a goal in business. All employees, regardless of how long they’ve been a part of your organization, have their eye on that corner office and the prestige that goes with it.

Hot desking disrupts that hierarchy and all but removes the goal of working your way into a private office. The nature of hot desking means that someone with 15 years of experience may be working right next to a brand-new hire.

Not everyone will enjoy that type of seating arrangement.

5) Health And Safety Issues

The high turnover inherent in the hot desking arrangement means that the spread of disease and illness is more likely.

A flexible workspace could see upwards of eight or more individuals occupy a single desk in one eight-hour period. Is your business equipped to deal with this potential hazard?

What new actions might you have to take to reduce the health and safety risks? Employee education? Training? Availability of antibacterial wipes? More frequent cleaning?

You’ll need to answer these questions for your business to keep your team members safe and healthy.

6) Lack Of Personal Space

One of the biggest drawbacks of hot desking is that it removes control of the environment from the hands of those who work there — the employees — and causes them to miss their personal space.

Before moving your activities or your team to a hot desking arrangement, investigate these questions:

• How important is personalization to you and your employees?

• Do you and they have the ability to control lighting, music, and other environmental factors?

• Do you and they find pleasure in displaying personal photos and artwork?

If the answers to these questions make it clear that personal space is important, you might want to consider a different work arrangement.

Benefits Of Hoteling

1) More Control Over Where You Work

The main benefit of hoteling vs. hot desking is that you have more control over where you work. Hoteling allows you to reserve a specific desk for any length of time.

If you know you’re going to need a week of intense focus to finish a project, hoteling can provide a sense of security and stability that can help you power through to the end.

Your desk will be waiting for you regardless of the time of day or night you arrive.

2) Improved Collaboration

As we mentioned earlier in the article, hoteling allows members of the same team to reserve desks in close proximity to facilitate teamwork and collaboration.

While hoteling might not work for large teams — a private office or suite would be better in that instance — groups of two or three can usually arrange things so that they can work together more successfully in a coworking environment.

3) Support For Remote Team Members

Remote team members are often neglected when it comes to the office seating arrangement because they normally work from home, a satellite office, or another location.

The lack of an adequate place to set their laptop may deter them from ever coming into the office to work with their team face-to-face. That can harm team unity.

Hoteling allows off-site and distributed team members the opportunity to reserve a desk of their choice when they know they’ll be in the office and makes them feel more like a part of the group.

4) Enhanced Productivity

Productivity is, in large part, about motivation. And motivation can change for better or worse without warning.

Hoteling, whether in a collaborative workspace or your own office building, helps maintain a more positive atmosphere that lends itself well to enhancing your team’s motivation.

Positive atmosphere and motivation of this type can inject new life into your team’s productivity and help them maintain it at high levels for longer.

5) Flexibility

Flexibility — in all aspects — is an essential characteristic of a successful business. That’s especially true when it comes to your team’s workspace.

One month your business is humming along with 14 employees, and the next you suddenly need double that. Then, a few months later, your business could handle even more team members (or it may need to go back to 14).

One of the many nice things about hoteling is the ease with which you can expand or contract your workspace footprint.

Start with 14 in May, expand to space for 28 in July, then continue to expand or contract as necessary from then on. Hoteling makes upsizing or downsizing easier than ever.

6) Lower Costs

Modern office spaces require a lot of capital to maintain. Furniture, decor, technology, repairs and maintenance, cleaning — these costs add up quickly and can put a serious dent in your bottom line.

But when you set up hoteling in a coworking space, such as Bond Collective, all of the infrastructure and overhead is taken care of for you.

Your team can walk in, find their reserved desks, focus on their work, and then leave for the day.

They don’t have to worry about changing the toner in the copy machine or restocking the snacks in the refrigerator — all for a low monthly fee that is considerably less than you would pay if you maintained your own office.

Drawbacks Of Hoteling

1) Potential Reservation Flaws

In hoteling, the effective tracking of who has what desk and for how long relies heavily on reservation software and good record-keeping.

If the coworking space doesn’t keep good records or uses sub-par software (or their software crashes often), you may lose your reservation and have nowhere to work for the day.

That can be disastrous if you’ve got a deadline looming and absolutely have to finish on time.

2) Difficulty Reserving Desks For A Large Team

Hoteling for a large team of more than 10 can be difficult (just like hot desking), because there may not be enough desks nearby to accommodate everyone.

It’s very similar to trying to find seats for a large group at the theater. Unless you reserve everything you need early in the process, you may not be able to sit together.

If your team depends on collaboration to excel, hoteling can throw a wrench in the works unless managed just right.

As we’ve mentioned, hoteling a private office instead of separate desks — which you can do at Bond Collective — is an excellent solution to this problem.

3) Less Accommodating To Work Emergencies

Because hoteling allows employees to stay at one desk for a prolonged period of time, it is less accommodating to work emergencies.

If a team member arrives at the office looking for a desk where she can host an emergency meeting with a client but all the desks are reserved for several days, that could cause a very real issue for your business.

4) Conflicts Among Neighbors

Within every business, not all coworkers get along. With hoteling, the possibility exists that two antagonistic team members could be sitting next to each other for a few days, weeks, or longer.

This arrangement could very well lead to conflicts not just between these two coworkers but among your team as a whole.

5) Lack Of Personalization

Hoteling, like hot desking, is not conducive to personalization of the workspace. For some team members, that could cause a reduction in morale, engagement, and, ultimately, productivity.

6) Not Enough Stability For Support Staff

While some jobs within your business may have no problem transitioning to a hoteling arrangement, other jobs may be less conducive to the switch.

Support staff, for example, may need more stability and less variation in order to provide uninterrupted service to their supervisors.

Hot Desking And Hoteling In One Space

One of the many nice things about modern coworking spaces is that they offer a variety of workspace options to fit your needs.

Bond Collective, for example, offers hot desking, hoteling (dedicated desks), conference rooms, and even private offices (or suites) all in one beautifully decorated work environment so your business has the space to take on any job, large or small.

Bond Collective also offers industry-leading amenities you can’t get anywhere else, including:

• Lightning-fast WiFi

• Photo and sound studio (Gowanus only)

• Guest reception and greeting

• Regular on-site cleaning

• Mail service

• Complimentary beer, coffee, tea, water, and fresh fruit

• Other food and beverages for sale

• Office showers with towel service

• Bike storage

• Rooftop lounge area

• Mothers’ rooms

• Pet-friendly environments

• Curated and networking events

Whether you’re a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, a digital nomad, a startup, a small business, or a team of 100 or more, Bond Collective can accommodate you with hot desking, hoteling, and private-office options.

Visit any one of Bond Collective’s many locations in the United States, including workspaces in New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas. Or call us today to find out more about everything we have to offer.

And while you’re at it, schedule a tour to experience first-hand how the boutique work environments at Bond Collective can benefit your business.

Katharina Hoerath is the powerhouse force behind the design team. As our Director of Architecture she brings our locations to life: translates ideas to paper, manages construct ability, code, and cost. Her experience and taste influence every detail, while her kindness and work ethic are unmatched. Let’s learn more about our artistic Austrian queen.

-Elide Rathborne, Director of Design

EG: How long have you worked for Bond Collective? Tell us about you first impression when you started…

KH: Three years, since August 2018. The first space we worked on together was Bushwick. It was very challenging thinking about hospitality and architecture on a holistic level, but challenging and intriguing in a very positive way. We had to really think about the design and the interactivity with how the members will use the space daily. It was totally different than anything I had done before, while also keeping in mind durability and keeping the space looking good for the long term. The goal of creating a homey yet focused atmosphere. It was really awesome getting involved with a brand that already had a determined sense of their point of view.

EG: Where are you from originally?

KH: I grew up in the Austrian Alps, very different from the Big Apple. There were only nine thousand people in my town, it was very outdoorsy which really influenced my perception of nature driven design. I would go hiking in the Alps, and water skiing in the lake. The way I grew up, it was very important to feel comfortable in every environment.

EG: Growing up, when did you realize you wanted to take a creative path?

KH: In order to answer “what do you want to be when you grow up”, my first answer was always an actress. Later in my adolescent years I knew I wanted to become an architect. Although, it was very hard to be an architect in Austria if your parents weren’t already architects.

My father was a chemical engineer, always drawing up plans, and when I was young I would watch him and draw up plans with him. I was fascinated by the idea of bridging science and art. I always did art pieces at home that, bless my parents, they never threw out. I loved making sculptures, one of my first pieces was carving a flame out of a wood trunk, I was 13 or 14.

EG: Tell me something that no one knows about you..

KH: I am a world champion vaulter. I used to do handstands on horseback.

EG: How did you get into vaulting?

KH: I grew up next to a horse farm, and went for horseback riding lessons. One day I saw a vaulting lesson happening and then convinced my parents this is what i wanted to do, I was 6. I joined the beginners vaulting team and I was fearless! I loved being thrown the air, very quickly I joined the advanced team and started traveling all over the country to tournaments. I was 16 when my team won third place in the world championship, when I was 14 and 15 we were the national champions of the country.

EG: Where did you go to school?

KH: Syracuse University for architecture, I have a double Master’s in Architecture and Art History.

EG: Who are your biggest influences in design and architecture?

KH: I love mid-century architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, Mies van der Rohe, and Zaha Hadid. My favorite architectural style is Modern with respect to classical.

EG: What was your favorite Bond location you’ve worked on so far?

KH: They are all fantastic, and have their different perks. I have to say Bushwick because it was the first one and had so many challenging aspects: an event space, new construction, connecting three existing buildings. It was really the beginning of us as a design team and we establishing a real design point of view.

EG: In your spare time you’re quite the artist, tell us about some of the projects you are working on in your spare time.

KH: My research for my second Master’s degree was materiality and how it impacts an atmosphere. Katie, my best friend from college, and I were approached by a visionnaire about creating an immersive way to drive knowledge about sustainability. The exhibits are all created by sustainable materials, or post consumer materials.
We have done a few rooms in Arcadia focused on the fiber cycle and the reduction and reuse of plastics.

EG: How do you stay sane while juggling so many projects?

KH: I find it very important to find time for myself, and love to exercise. I play the piano and spend time with my significant other, George. I also quite enjoy the late night calls to discuss design with Elide and Thomas, great design ideas sometimes happen at midnight.

EG: If you could have a dream vacation anywhere, where would it be?

KH: BORA BORA, because I’m dreaming of being on the water, it’s my calming place without wifi. I take that back, I would rather go to Bond Collective’s new downtown LA location, it is stunning!

EG: Biggest takeaway so far working at Bond?

KH: How important it is to love your teammates on a personal level, it really helps to show your best. When you understand your colleagues you show your best on a professional level and create the best work

EG: If there’s one thing that you could tell your younger self today, what would it be?

KH: JUST DO IT!!

By Bond Collective Staff

Working remotely can be hard on your whole team. So how do you help them build camaraderie, maintain cooperation, strengthen their work bonds, and feel engaged? Virtual happy hour games, that’s how.

In this article, we discuss the best virtual happy hour games you can use to bring your team together, boost their energy and creativity, and help them feel like a cohesive unit again instead of lonely individuals working by themselves.

Virtual Happy Hour Games

1) Name That Tune — Emoji Style

Name That Tune — Emoji Style is one of the best virtual happy hour games because it combines two things everyone loves: music and emojis.

Here’s how it works:

1. Each person takes a turn sharing their screen.

2. Set a timer for three to five minutes.

3. Using a program that generates emojis (a text app, MS Word, Google Docs), the person types out the name of their favorite song (or the one most-recently played on their device) in nothing but emojis.

4. The other members of the team take turns trying to guess the name of the song until the timer runs out.

5. At the end of the time, if no one has guessed, reveal the song and share what motivated you to play it.

Alternatively, you, as the host of these virtual happy hour games, can display the emoji songs and challenge everyone to work together to guess the title.

For even more fun and challenge, break the group into teams and pit them against each other to see who can guess the most titles correctly.

2) Team Trivia

Feed your employees’ competitive needs — even when working remotely — by organizing a trivia contest as one of your virtual happy hour games.

One of the easiest ways to organize the event is to divide into two or more teams, break out the Trivial Pursuit board, and have some fun.

We recommend setting a time limit and either seeing which team gets the most pie pieces or which team answers the most questions correctly before time runs out.

Want a twist on the original Trivial Pursuit game? Try these other versions:

• Disney

• Star Wars

• Lord Of The Rings

• Kids

• Totally ‘80s

• ‘90s

There are even supplementary question sets — Big Bang Theory, Friends TV Show, Girls Vs. Guys (with categories tailored to each sex) — that you can use to make things more interesting.

If those options don’t seem like something your team would enjoy, you can also create your own questions on any topic(s) you want.

3) A Significant Year

This virtual happy hour game is a great way for your team members to have fun and get to know each other better in the process.

Before starting the game, have all the participants give you the year they were born.

Google “random number generator” — Google has their own widget for this that should pop up at the top of the search results — and set the minimum to the earliest year someone was born (e.g., 1975) and the maximum to the current year (e.g., 2020).

When you’ve got the parameters set, click or tap “Generate” and the widget spits out a year.

One by one, go through the group and ask each person to share something significant that happened to them in the year on your screen.

You can either generate a new number for each person or generate one number per round and ask everyone about that year.

4) Speed Crossword

Speed Crossword is a classic among both face-to-face and virtual happy hour games.

The premise and execution are simple:

1. Create or obtain two or more identical copies of the same crossword puzzle.

2. Email a copy to everyone who is attending this round of virtual happy hour games.

3. When everyone is ready to play, divide into two or more teams.

4. Establish an honor system wherein no one uses the internet to find answers.

5. Give them a time limit to complete their crossword puzzle.

6. Send each team to their own breakout room.

The first team to return to the main meeting room is the potential winner (after you verify their answers, of course).

If none of the teams complete their puzzle in the allotted time, determine the winner by which one has the most answers correct.

5) Learn A Line Dance

This entry on our list of virtual happy hour games is unique because it requires that participants get out of their seats and move around.

If you (or another team member) know a simple and fun line dance, you can be the leader. Alternatively, you can find short tutorials online for line dances such as:

• Electric Slide

• Macarena

• Cupid Shuffle

• Cotton-Eye Joe

• Cha Cha Slide

Take a few minutes to learn the movements and then have everyone reposition their cameras (if possible) so that they can move around. Start the music and let the fun begin.

We recommend that you record the group dance and play it back when the song ends so that everyone can enjoy the results.

6) Virtual Happy Hour Games Bingo

Virtual Happy Hour Games Bingo is a fun and easy activity you can run while other things are going on (think of it like a background app).

Search online for conference call bingo boards, or make your own with prompts such as:

• “Sorry, I was muted.” (Or some variation)

• “You have to unmute.”

• “Can everyone see my screen?”

• Someone drops from the call

• Dog appears on screen

• Cat appears on screen

• “Can you hear me now?”

• You take a drink at the same time as a coworker

• Meeting ends on time

• Family member in background

• Host uses breakout rooms

When someone completes a row (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal), they should yell out “Bingo!”

Verify their answers and either keep the game going (for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place) or move on to another game.

7) Quick Questions

As virtual happy hour games go, this one is both easy to set up and fun to execute.

You can run it one of two ways:

1. Ask a different question to each participant.

2. Ask the same question to each participant.

If you want to try the former option, make it rapid-fire so they answer the first thing that comes to their mind. You’ll need a long list of questions for this one.

If you want to try the latter option, you can give more time for a thoughtful answer. You’ll need fewer questions for this one.

Either way, leave plenty of time for discussion afterward (or even during the game) so team members can explain their response.

Here are some examples of quick questions:

• What is your guilty pleasure movie?

• Which song can you listen to over and over again?

• Pancakes or waffles?

• Where would you haunt for all eternity?

• Which web browser do you use most?

• Would you rather work from a mountain cabin or the beach?

• What is the last book you read?

• What is the coolest/most unique thing you have within reach right now?

• What is your typing speed?

• What is your WiFi name?

• What is the last website you visited?

• What was your first online username?

8) What Do You Do?

What Do You Do is one of the simpler virtual happy hour games, but it’s no less fun.

You also can’t use it every week (if you get together that often) or even every month because answers won’t change enough to stimulate further discussion.

However, if the composition of your team changes or you have different attendees at your gathering, you can bring this one back for a bit of variety.

Here’s how it works:

• Pose this situation to your team: “You’re alone in a dark cabin. All you have is one match, an oil lamp, a fireplace, and a candle. Which would you light first?”

• Allow a minute or so for everyone to think about and choose their answer.

• Give each participant the opportunity to share their choice and the reasoning behind it.

Regardless of whether you run this game at the beginning or the end of happy hour, be sure to leave time for discussion and explanation.

9) Backward Charades

In traditional Charades, players are not allowed to use words, only movements and gestures, to describe a person, place, thing, or action. In Backward Charades, it’s the opposite: Players are not allowed to use gestures, only words, to elicit the correct answer.

In addition to the answer itself, players are not allowed to say certain other words that might give away the answer too easily.

For example, if the correct answer is pizza, you might also consider banning use of the words tomato, sauce, mozzarella, and pepperoni. Or, if the correct answer is test, you might ban use of the words study, learn, school, teacher, and answer.

Struggling to come up with prompts for this game? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Shaking hands

2. Throwing a football

3. Dancing the Macarena

4. Walking a tightrope

5. Making pizza dough

6. Roping an animal

So, if player A was tasked with describing “shaking hands” without using the words hand, fingers, palm, shake, and greeting, they might say, “As a form of welcome, I’m going to extend my right arm toward you with the end of my arm facing to my left. In response, you are going to extend your right arm toward me with the end of your arm facing to your left. We are going to press the flesh at the end of our arms together and move it up and down slightly.”

If player A’s team can guess “shaking hands” from this description, they win a point.

Backward Charades is very much like the board game Taboo, so feel free to obtain a copy of the game for use in your virtual happy hour.

10) “Who’s Most Likely To…?”

“Who’s Most Likely To…” is a fun icebreaker in which the leader poses a question and the attendees vote on which coworker is most likely to perform that task.

For example, you might ask:

• Who is most likely to believe that unicorns exist?

• Who is most likely to wind up on the news?

• Who is most likely to assume the role of leader in a zombie apocalypse?

• Who is most likely to run away to join the circus?

• Who is most likely to visit Antarctica?

• Who is most likely to win the lottery?

• Who is most likely to forget a birthday?

• Who is most likely to help you move?

• Who is most likely to have a movie made about them?

You can have people vote by raising their physical hand or their virtual hand, or, to make things easier, you can set up a number of online polls and have the computer do the counting work for you.

You can also create penalties for amassing too many votes or not enough, depending on how you want to play it. If adult beverages are part of the festivities, the player with the most votes must take a drink or, perhaps, perform five burpees.

However you choose to structure the game, be sure to leave time to discuss the reasoning behind each vote — especially if someone votes contrary to the majority.

11) Personal-Meaning Scavenger Hunt

This entry on our list of virtual happy hour games is a twist on the standard scavenger hunt where small teams or individuals hunt for items in a race against others.

In a traditional scavenger hunt, you, as the game runner, would plant items for your team members to physically hunt and find. But, because team members may be separated by large distances, this “follow-the-clues” type of participation isn’t possible.

Instead, in a personal-meaning scavenger hunt, you challenge employees to find items that hold specific value for them.

For example, you can give your team members five minutes and ask them to:

• Find the item that makes them the happiest

• Find their favorite way to connect to others

• Find an item that triggers a powerful memory

Once everyone is back on screen, give each person a few minutes to explain the meaning behind the item they’ve chosen.

12) Lightning Round Scavenger Hunt

Like the Personal-Meaning Scavenger Hunt, this virtual happy hour game is a twist on the standard scavenger hunt. Unlike the Personal-Meaning Scavenger Hunt, though, this activity is all about speed.

Here’s how it works:

1. Divide into teams (or play as individuals if it’s a small group)

2. On your “Go,” challenge everyone to find a specific object (e.g., a 3.5-inch floppy disk)

3. The first person back on screen wins a point for their team (or themself)

So, if you’ve divided all participants into teams A, B, and C, and you’ve challenged them to find a large eraser (like a Pink Pearl). Countdown from three and say, “Go!”

Everyone now runs around their living space or searches through their possessions to find a large eraser. The first one back on the video conference with the item in question wins a point.

For even more fun, make a list of uncommon items that someone might have close by and mix those in with more common items such as a stapler, a USB drive, and a paperclip.

Not sure what type of uncommon objects to include? Here’re a few to get you started:

1. 5.25-inch floppy disk

2. Cassette tape (from the 80s and 90s)

3. 8-track tape (from the 70s)

4. LP record

5. 45 record

6. Marble (the pretty, round child’s toy)

7. Pez dispenser

8. Magnifying glass

9. Coaster (for under a drink)

10. Hip flask

For even more fun, allow time for individuals to explain why they have these hard-to-find items.

13) Sneak It In

“Sneak It In” takes a bit of prep and record keeping, but it’s a fun individual or team game that you can run anytime.

Here’s how it works:

At the start of your virtual happy hour, give each attendee a secret word. (Or, you could divide into teams, separate into breakout rooms to discuss strategy, and then come back together to start the game.)

Players then attempt to work the secret word into the conversation as many times as possible without others noticing. Teams or individuals earn a point every time they mention their secret work without being “caught”. But, if someone else recognizes the other team’s secret word and calls it out, said team loses all their points.

The point of the game is to amass as many mentions of your secret word as possible (without getting caught) while trying to figure out the other secret word(s) floating around.

Whether you run the game with teams or individuals, try to come up with secret words that don’t flow easily into regular conversation.

For example, you might assign such words as:

• Railroad

• Avocado

• Jet ski

• Kumquat

• Curry

• Tango

• Witness

• Rhino

14) Group Think

“Group Think” is a fun virtual happy hour game for new teams, or when new individuals are present, because it doesn’t put any one person on the spot right away.

Divide all the participants into small teams (three or four works well) and supply them with a list of questions (or, have them write down the questions as you read them off).

Then, send each team to a breakout room and challenge them to answer the quiz based solely on the knowledge in their heads and without using the internet.

You’ll have to operate on the honor system with this one because the internet is everywhere, but you can stress at the beginning of the game that it’s about having fun with your teammates, not about having the right answer.

Ideas for questions include:

• Correctly spell a difficult word

• Guess the number of marbles after looking at a picture (or an actual jar of marbles) for one minute

• Write as many digits as possible of pi

• Name three models of a certain make of car (e.g., Toyota Corolla, Camry, RAV4)

• Name a song based on the lyrics

When all teams are finished, bring everyone back together and present the answers to see who won.

The Right Space For Virtual Happy Hour Games

Want to make your virtual happy hour games more effective and more fun for everyone? Choose the right space from which to host the virtual meeting.

It might not seem like it at first, but what your team can see behind you has a significant effect on their attention span and their engagement.

You want them focused on the games — and each other — not on the clutter in the corner of your room.

If you’re running the virtual happy hour games from your home or apartment, position the camera so that it captures as little of your living space as possible — a blank or sparsely decorated wall is best.

The best option, of course, is to run your virtual happy hour games from a conference room or other professional workspace.

The coworking spaces at Bond Collective are the perfect solution for all of your virtual meeting needs.

At Bond Collective, we provide:

• Conference rooms

• Private offices

• Private meeting rooms

• Private phone booths

• Fast, reliable WiFi and Ethernet connections

• Unlimited black and white printing

• Access to other portfolio locations

• And other industry-leading amenities

With access to those spaces and that infrastructure, your virtual happy hour games will go off without a hitch and bring your distributed team closer than ever before.

Visit any one of Bond Collective’s many locations in the United States, including workspaces in New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas. Or call us today to find out more about everything we have to offer.

And while you’re at it, schedule a tour to experience first-hand how the boutique work environments at Bond Collective can benefit your business.

By Bond Collective Staff

For teams of all sizes, operating successfully in a flexible workspace means being able to accommodate many different activities (e.g., team meetings, quiet work, and collaboration) in the same general area without undue difficulty or disruption.

For an entrepreneur who’s just getting started (and may be working all by themselves or as part of a small team), operating successfully in a flexible workspace means enjoying the same options as a larger business without the cost of owning and maintaining their own office.

In this article, the experts at Bond Collective discuss the benefits of a flexible workspace for entrepreneurs who’re ready to take the business world by storm.

What Is Flexible Workspace?

As we touched on at the beginning of this article, flexible workspace is an office concept that makes it easy for teams large and small to do two things:

1. Work together on different tasks in the same general area

2. Modify the space to allow these activities to take place

In a traditional office model where one business works in their own dedicated building or on their own private floor, flexible workspace is more about easily-movable furniture that allows teams to spread out and arrange the furniture to their needs so they can work wherever the inspiration strikes them.

In the more modern office model where multiple businesses, teams, and even individuals work in the same shared office environment, flexible workspace is about providing a variety of seating options to accommodate whatever work needs done.

In a flexible workspace environment (such as those at Bond Collective), you’re likely to find businesses of all sizes — or even teams from businesses that own their own space.

A team of 100 from a large, international company might be working side-by-side with a solopreneur just starting a new business or a freelancer who is tired of working from home. They can benefit from a variety of spaces, just like the office space in Los Angeles.

This is made possible thanks to communal areas with multiple seating options such as private offices, conference rooms, hot desks, dedicated desks, lounge areas, and more.

The benefits of this new office model for entrepreneurs might not be readily apparent, but when you look below the surface of what flexible workspace has to offer, you’ll discover advantages that you can’t find anywhere else.

Benefits Of Flexible Workspace

1) Infrastructure

Infrastructure is all the little things that make work possible, such as:

• Utilities

• Technology

• Furniture

• Decor

• Storage

Infrastructure even extends into necessary responsibilities that make the office run such as cleaning, restocking, controlling heating and cooling, and much more.

In a traditional office environment, you, or one of your team members, would have to take care of those issues.

In a flexible workspace like Bond Collective, those details are handled for you. That means you and your team can focus on work without worrying about who’s going to refill the water cooler.

2) Low Overhead

If you owned your own building or leased your own floor, not only would you be responsible for managing the infrastructure, you’d be responsible for paying for it, too.

That can take a major bite out of your operating capital.

But with a flexible workspace like Bond Collective, your business and all the other businesses working there pay for the infrastructure together.

Through this collective arrangement, your business will pay significantly less for its overhead when compared to the traditional office model of one business, one space.

3) No Long-Term Lease

You can avoid the risk of a long-term lease by basing your business — large or small — in a flexible workspace.

A long-term lease locks your business into a payment that won’t adapt as the market changes. The flexible workspace is much more…well, flexible.

You pay month-to-month for the footprint your team needs and avoid the issues that come when your market drops and you need to allocate funds for other, more important uses.

4) Professional Image

As an entrepreneur, professional image often takes a back seat to product or service development. A lack of professional image, however, can cause problems down the road when you need to meet with clients.

But when you base your business in a flexible workspace, professional image comes standard.

At Bond Collective, for example, all members benefit from guest reception, luxury decor, comfortable workspaces, and 24-hour access to conference rooms.

With a flexible workspace like this, you can focus on keeping your product or service development funded without sacrificing the professional image you need to succeed.

5) Agility

Agility is all about being prepared for the inevitable ups and downs your business will experience during its lifetime. A flexible workspace can help.

During lean years, your income goes down and your staffing needs decrease. During prosperous years, your income goes up and your staffing needs increase.

In both of those cases, a flexible workspace allows you to stay agile by expanding or contracting your “office footprint” accordingly.

Bond Collective, for example, makes it easy to change where you work from one month to the next. Your team can occupy dedicated desks in the first quarter, upgrade to private offices in the second quarter, and then downgrade to first-come-first-served desks in the third quarter.

That agility will help you save working capital and keep your business competitive longer.

6) Collaboration

As an entrepreneur, it often feels like you’re working in a vacuum with no input from anyone else. That lack of guidance and motivation can quickly bring your progress to a standstill.

A flexible workspace, on the other hand, allows you to work side-by-side with professionals from a wide variety of businesses. And when you work in close proximity with experts in their field, collaboration is inevitable.

Say, for example, that you strike up a conversation with a freelance coder in the lounge area one morning and find that your SEO business could expand into new markets with a bespoke app.

You can hire that person — or that person’s business — to work together on making that inspiration a reality. That’s collaboration in a nutshell and applies to individuals interacting with other individuals or teams interacting with other teams.

It doesn’t matter how large or small your business is, a flexible workspace makes collaboration easier than ever before.

7) Inspiration

Whether you work as an entrepreneur by yourself or as part of a small team, the daily grind can take its toll.

It’s all too easy to lose creativity and develop tunnel vision when you work on a single idea day in and day out.

In a flexible workspace, you’re always surrounded by professionals from different niches with unique perspectives and ideas.

All it takes to reclaim your inspiration and breathe new life into your project is a conversation with someone in another industry who sees things just a bit differently than you do.

8) Comfort

As an entrepreneur, you’re ready to work anywhere to get the job done. But uncomfortable chairs, limited room to spread out, and too much noise (just to name a few) are not conducive to getting the job done right.

A comfortable environment plays a big role in helping you — and your team — maintain the creativity and productivity you need to take your business to the next level.

Most first-time business owners and entrepreneurs can’t afford luxuries like ergonomic chairs, adjustable-height desks, conference-size tables, and comfy sofas. Their money is tied up in getting their product or service off the ground.

When you base your startup — whether it’s just you or you and a small team — in a flexible workspace like Bond Collective, you get comfort built in. And that comfort isn’t an afterthought. It’s not an also-ran.

Our flexible workspaces are built and designed around two core principles: comfort and function. So you don’t have to expend energy trying to get comfortable while finishing that big project.

You can just focus on the work and on building your business into the success you know it can be.

9) Protection From Unpredictable Change

As we’ve touched on throughout this list, flexible workspaces offer a unique benefit that you can’t find in other office options: protection from market volatility.

Whether it’s unused square footage, the need for more or fewer team members, or just conserving capital for the next stage of development, flexible office spaces can protect your business from the ups and downs of your industry.

In a flexible workspace like Bond Collective, your business will be more nimble. This ability to react to change can give you a leg-up over your competitors who are more exposed to the ups-and-downs of the market because their money is tied up in a long-term lease.

10) Reduced Occupancy Cost

The cost of finding, leasing, and equipping your own office space in today’s market is astronomical. This makes it cost-prohibitive for all but the largest companies.

And whether you own the building, or you’re merely renting, the advantages of the flexible workspace quickly manifest themselves as reduced occupancy costs.

As an established business, sharing your space with other businesses, teams, and individuals helps you eliminate resources that may have been going unused (i.e., empty offices).

As a nascent business, flexible office spaces give you the opportunity to work from an attractive, fully furnished workspace at a fraction of the cost of leasing your own building.

How To Create A Flexible Workspace

1) Create Pods

When most people think about flexible workspace, they envision long tables of designated stations, like cubicles without the walls. But this isn’t the best arrangement for productivity.

Instead of row-after-row of workstations, group two, three, or four desks into “pods.”

This type of setup minimizes the localized noise pollution that can cause team members to lose focus and provides a bit of empty space between stations so employees don’t feel like sardines in a can.

2) Furnish With Active And Modular Furniture

In a flexible workspace, active and modular furniture and storage give your team members the option to rearrange an area to suit the needs of the moment. That makes for a much more work-friendly environment.

Furniture and storage that employees can move around and alter give them more control of the way they work.

Whether you’re thinking about where to situate your pods or about what type of tables to include in your collaboration space, the variety and flexibility you plan for in your workplace extend all the way down to the individual pieces of furniture you choose.

For a happier, healthier team, incorporate active and modular furniture instead of relying solely on the standard desk and chair setup.

Active and modular furniture includes the likes of:

• Cafe tables

• Large tables on rollers

• Ergonomic chairs

• Movable ottomans with built-in storage

• Pedestal stools

• Saddle chairs

• Adjustable-height desks

• Rolling file cabinets

• Even treadmills and bike chairs

Having a variety of seating, work-surface, and storage options allows your team members to change positions often to accommodate private and group work while helping them avoid the physical strain that comes with sitting for eight hours every day.

3) Set Aside Space For Focus

When setting up a flexible workspace, think in terms of zones of specific types of work. Chief amongst those zones is the focus space.

Yes, a big part of the way your business works depends on team collaboration. As such, you want plenty of space to facilitate that activity.

Equally important, though, is providing a place for team members to go when they need a bit of quiet to focus on a single task and work by themselves. That’s what the focus space is for.

Locate this space so that it is as far away from the noise of collaborative work areas as possible. You may even go so far as to wall it off to cut the noise and distraction completely.

At the very least, consider delineating the space between focus and collaboration with tall plants, bookcases, or other sound and visual breaks.

4) Decorate With Natural Elements

Transform the aesthetic of your flexible workspace and bring a softer, more natural touch to the room by adding plants to your decor.

Bringing the outdoors into your office does more than just spruce up the space; it also boosts morale and productivity — two variables that you might find difficult to maintain for long periods of time.

Research shows that teams that work in sight of even a single plant are more productive than their plantless counterparts — even in the lean workspaces occupied by entrepreneurs and startups.

As we mentioned earlier, you can use plants to separate one work area from another, but you can also use them to absorb sound and make the environment more inviting.

They offer the added benefit of being easy to move should you choose to redecorate. Need to relocate your quiet area to the other side of the space? A wall of plants is easier and less costly to move than a regular lumber and plywood divider.

If you’re stuck for other ideas on how to green up your office layout, try arranging a few plants on the windowsills in your office or clustering them in a drab corner of the room.

For more suggestions on using plants to improve productivity in your work environment, take a few minutes to read these helpful articles from the Bond Collective blog:

• 11 Low-Maintenance Plants To Transform Your Office

• The 7 Best Office Plants To Enhance Any Workspace

5) Establish Phone Call And Meeting Spaces

Few things are as disruptive as phone calls within a busy office.

Employees using a phone often talk loudly in order to be heard — even if it’s not necessary — and it’s very difficult to break that habit. All that loud talking can seriously disrupt the other team members within earshot.

Similarly, meetings — even between just two people — can get loud and distract those nearby. The solution? Dedicated areas for these activities.

In the same way that you established space for quiet work, set aside similar space for phone calls and small meetings. Large meetings naturally occur in the conference room, so these workspaces don’t have to occupy a huge area — three or four enclosed booths work well.

Even a small amount of space between conversations will help keep disruptions to a minimum and allow everyone to work at their best.

6) Organize The Cords And Cables

Few things make your flexible workspace feel more disorganized than a mass of cords and cables. Simply knowing that a big knot of wires is hanging under your desk or lying on the floor is enough to distract even the most focused person.

Invest in a cable organization system for your workstations so there’s less disarray, and consider purchasing furniture with built-in power outlets so team members don’t have to string long lengths of cord from walls to their work surfaces.

7) Provide Busy Indicators

In more traditional layouts with private offices, team members could close the door when they didn’t want to be disturbed. Not so in many modern offices.

Sometimes, though, an employee really needs to focus and doesn’t want to answer questions or talk to others. But how can they communicate this to those working near them?

Provide everyone with a “busy” indicator and encourage them to display it when they don’t want to be disturbed. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate — something as simple as a sticker, flag, sign, or light will work.

The purpose of it being to communicate from afar whether or not the team member is amenable to interruptions.

8) Allow Space For Movement

When setting up your workspace, keep high-traffic areas clear and allow room for movement. You may be tempted to wedge a few more workstations into or near common spaces, but that’s a mistake.

Areas around bathrooms, kitchens, breakrooms, elevators, and stairs are full of distractions and are not conducive to focus and productivity.

Keep those public spaces clear and allow them to do what they were designed to do: handle the movement of people within a busy office.

Skip The Stress Of DIY

If you own or lease your own space, it is possible to create a flexible workspace within and around what you’ve already got.

Doing so, however, takes time, effort, and funds that you may not have — not to mention the disruptions it will cause — so why not partner with the professionals at Bond Collective and let them do it for you?

All The Flexible Workspace You Need

At Bond Collective, we offer all the flexible workspace you need to run your business better than ever before.

Whether you need a private office, a suite of offices, or just a place to sit and type, you’ll find it all at any one of the many Bond Collective locations across the country.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a team of one or 100, you’ll enjoy all that Bond Collective has to offer including industry-leading amenities, such as:

• Conference rooms for 2 or 20+

• Custom build-outs

• Private meeting and phone booths

• Guest reception and greeting

• Professional image

• Unlimited black-and-white printing

• Fast, reliable WiFi and ethernet

• Mail and package handling

• Porter service

• Nightly office cleaning

• Fresh fruit, snacks, and weekly breakfast

• Complimentary spa water, craft beer, and coffee

Visit any one of Bond Collective’s many locations in the United States — including workspaces in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York City, Brooklyn, Washington D.C., and Chicago — to see what the pinnacle of flexible workspace has to offer.

By Bond Collective Staff

Though it may be a brand-new concept for your business, the hybrid office has been around for quite a while. Now, however, the hybrid model is rapidly becoming the go-to setup for businesses of all types and sizes.

In this article, we’ll discuss the hybrid office in detail and offer tips for creating your own hybrid model from scratch.

Hybrid Office Defined

A hybrid office is one that supports remote workers with the same level of technology, company culture, connectivity, and inclusion that in-office workers enjoy.

This focus on equality of resources no matter where the employee works lies in sharp contrast to the more traditional work model that focuses almost exclusively on supporting the in-office workforce and marginalizes those employees working virtually.

The hybrid work model also differs from the traditional model in three other fundamental ways:

1. Remote employees versus in-office employees working at any one time is not static and will shift from hour to hour, day to day, and week to week

2. Team members don’t necessarily have to schedule where they work in advance

3. The number of in-office workers doesn’t always exceed the number of virtual workers

This transition away from the common concept of one employee, one assigned desk toward a more fluid and flexible workplace serves as the foundation of it all and demands that businesses change the way they think about their offices and how their teams work.

We’ll discuss a number of important variables that go into making this new paradigm work successfully later on in this article.

But first, we’ll investigate the theory behind the hybrid office and how it provides a unique flexibility that can change the way your business works.

The Theory Behind The Hybrid Office

As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, the hybrid office — a model that supports remote workers and in-office workers to the same degree — has been around for a long time.

The theory, though, has undergone a radical shift in recent years thanks, in large part, to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, the hybrid concept embodies and represents the dual ideas of flexibility and adjustability, which extend into both the physical workplace itself and into the way the business reacts to and operates in light of external conditions.

In the physical sense, modern hybrid theory focuses less on individual workstations and more on collaboration spaces where both in-office and remote employees can gather and work together.

In the operational sense, modern hybrid theory provides options that are more adjustable to the overall needs of the business and allows them to customize how and where employees work at a moment’s notice.

Your business, operating under this new paradigm, might implement practices that can change from minute to minute, day to day, and week to week to accommodate the needs of the employees, the needs of the business, and the external conditions that affect them both.

For example, your business may set up a multi-stage plan that can adjust at a moment’s notice to change where and how team members work. That plan may look something like this:

Stage 1: Closed

Stage 2: Mandatory work from home

Stage 3: Work from home strongly encouraged

Stage 4: Soft open

Stage 5: Open with restrictions

Stage 6: All open and employees on-site

ranted, your business may not need to go as deep into the hybrid theory and philosophy as this example, but implementing the physical aspects — a flexible workspace that facilitates in-person and remote collaboration — is certainly worth considering.

Tips For The Perfect Hybrid Office

1) Focus On Technology

Technology is the power that drives the hybrid office because remote work all but demands the internet and cloud-based apps.

The transition from on-site data storage and processing to cloud-based storage and processing means that teams can access data and work together in real time, no matter where each employee is physically located.

As long as both individuals have a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer and can access the internet, they can communicate and collaborate on individual and team projects.

For the most part, that will involve two distinct sets of tools:

• Video conferencing

• Online collaboration

At first glance, these may seem like similar things, but they are actually different enough that they occupy their own category.

Video conferencing apps such as Google Meet, GoToMeeting, Zoom, and Skype allow anyone with an internet connection to meet, talk, and work together regardless of where they’re located.

On the other hand, collaboration tools such as Slack, Trello, and Google Workspace are about organizing your workflow, communicating in real time, tracking changes in documents and spreadsheets, and minimizing the confusion of multiple team members working on the same task from different locations.

For example, two team members — one in California and the other in New York — could be Skyping (talking “face-to-face”) while working together to edit a shared spreadsheet in Google Workspace.

This highlights the difference between (and the importance of) the two distinct technologies for the success of your hybrid office.

2) Offer Hot Desking

The traditional office model revolves around the concept of one employee, one desk. When an employee starts work at your business, you assign them a space of their own, and they report there every day.

The hybrid office is completely different because some team members may only report in person two or three times a week, while others may always work remotely. If you assigned desks to these team members, you’d end up with a lot of unused space.

That’s where hot desking comes in. In hot desking, team members occupy workspaces on a first-come, first-served basis.

Desks, tables, and chairs have no permanent “owner,” and employees use whatever is available that fits their needs when they arrive.

This seating model does require that your business also implements some sort of tracking system (be it manual or digital) to keep track of used and unused desks. Such check-in and check-out software is relatively inexpensive and easy to incorporate into your workflow.

3) Experiment With Hoteling

Hoteling is similar to hot desking but different in one key aspect: workspaces are reserved ahead of time — typically for longer durations of several days, a week, or a month.

If a remote team member knows they will be in town for a week and would like the security and consistency of the same desk day after day, hoteling is the perfect solution.

Like hot desking, hoteling only works if you pair it with a reservation and tracking system that is easy to use and accessible to all anytime, day or night.

4) Create Person-To-Person Spaces

Collaboration spaces where the whole team can work together have been a big part of office design for a long time — and that won’t change any time soon.

What has changed is the addition of person-to-person spaces where in-office team members can talk privately with their remote colleagues.

These one-on-one spaces may be as small as a telephone booth with nothing more than a chair and a table, or as large as a restaurant booth with bench seats and a table in-between.

Regardless of the size, person-to-person spaces are completely enclosed and are soundproof so that team members can conduct confidential meetings in private.

The Hybrid Office Done For You

Building a hybrid office from the ground up out of your existing workspace can be difficult, expensive, time-consuming, and stressful for those involved.

But when you partner with Bond Collective, we remove the difficulty, reduce the expense, shorten the process dramatically, and eliminate the stress.

How? By leveraging our vast experience and existing flexible workspaces all over the United States for the betterment of your team and your company.

For years, we’ve provided the business world with coworking spaces (the precursor of the hybrid workplace) for individuals, teams, and entire businesses.

Whether you need a private office, a suite of offices, a dedicated desk, or just a place to sit and type, you’ll find it at any one of our many locations across the country.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a team of one or 100, you’ll enjoy all that we have to offer, including industry-leading amenities such as:

• Conference rooms for two or 20+

• Custom build-outs

• Private meeting and phone booths

• Guest reception and greeting

• Professional environment

• Unlimited black-and-white printing

• Fast, reliable WiFi

• Mail and package handling

• Porter service

• Nightly office cleaning

• Fresh fruit, snacks, and weekly breakfast

• Complimentary spa water, craft beer, and coffee

Visit any one of our many locations in the United States, including workspaces in NYC, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Austin. Or call us today to find out more.

And while you’re at it, schedule a tour to experience first-hand how the boutique work environments at Bond Collective can benefit your business.

By Bond Collective Staff

Contrary to what you may have heard, office etiquette does matter. The way you and your team present yourselves and interact with each other and with clients directly affects the success of your business. Yes, it’s that important.

But what constitutes proper behavior in a work setting these days? In this article, we discuss essential office etiquette for businesses of all sizes and employees of all ages.

Office Etiquette For The 21st Century

1) Dress Appropriately For The Office

Every office is different and will have its own unique dress code. Some will require more formal attire, while others allow more casual options.

Even if your business falls into the latter category, it’s best to leave the sweatpants, flip-flops, and t-shirts at home. Dressing too casual is detrimental to the productivity of your team and can send the wrong message to customers and clients.

2) Keep Noise To A Minimum

A big part of professional office etiquette is keeping unnecessary noise to a minimum whenever possible.

Certain activities — talking on the phone with clients, helping a customer, or discussing project details with a nearby co-worker — are acceptable at low volumes, but if the conversation gets too loud, move to a conference room so you don’t disturb those around you who are trying to focus.

3) Use Professional Language

When it comes to office etiquette, professional language is a must. Swear words and potentially offensive slang are becoming all too common these days — even in the workplace.

This can cause conflict between team members and create a less-than-desirable impression with customers and clients who interact with your employees.

4) Be Punctual

As a general rule of office etiquette, being punctual means arriving a few minutes early. This typically applies to the start of the workday, but also extends to team meetings and client appointments.

Think about the image you convey to those around you when you walk in just as the meeting is about to start. In some cases, co-workers and clients alike could take offense because you didn’t have the courtesy to be in your seat before the meeting was supposed to start.

5) Understand How To Use Email Correctly

The bulk of business communication these days is conducted via email. Because of that, it’s more important than ever that everyone on the team understands how to use the technology correctly.

If you’re not familiar with some of the deeper controls, ask someone who is. In particular, make sure you know the difference between Reply and Reply All and when you should and shouldn’t use the latter.

Similarly, get comfortable with the CC and BCC features when sending messages so you can avoid being the cause of an out-of-control email chain or sharing private details or opinions with the whole team.

6) Wearing A Mask Is A Personal Choice

At the most basic, recent world events highlight the importance of taking steps to avoid the spread of germs in the workplace.

Whether we like it or not, appropriate office etiquette now demands that we accept the fact that, when not mandatory, wearing a mask while at work is a personal choice — much like the choice between coffee and tea.

While one may not choose to wear a mask personally, they can’t begrudge someone who does. Maybe they have a weakened immune system. Or, maybe they live with someone who is more prone to illness, and they don’t want to take anything home.

At the very least, wearing a mask can help prevent the spread of the flu and the common cold. So, if one of your team members chooses to wear a mask while at work, treat it like the personal decision that it is.

7) Reply To Communications Promptly

Interoffice communication between team members usually revolves around collaboration, solving problems, and dealing with work issues.

Responding to these messages promptly, then, becomes essential for the smooth operation of the business.

If you let your emails, phone messages, texts, and IMs go unanswered for a few days, you could be preventing a co-worker from making progress on their project.

8) Create A Proper Personal Email Address

This may seem inconsequential to the smooth operation of your team and your business, but it actually goes a long way toward maintaining professional office etiquette.

There are any number of reasons why you might not be able to access your business email and have to respond from your personal account. What impression are you making if your team members, your superiors, or your clients receive a message from “studmuffin69” or “ilikedinos?”

Create a proper personal email address — something like firstname.lastname — and avoid the problem altogether.

9) Take Personal Conversations Someplace Private

It’s inevitable that you’ll need to have a personal conversation while at work once in a while.

When that happens — whether it’s face-to-face with a co-worker or on the phone with a family member — take the conversation someplace private.

A conference room, vacant office, phone booth, or anywhere you can close the door for a little privacy are ideal options. Removing the conversation from the public spaces will help keep the topic and the private details where they belong: between the individuals involved.

10) Pay Attention To Personal Hygiene

Much like proper attire, personal hygiene is a big part of good office etiquette. As a general rule, hygiene involves everything that others can see, hear, and smell.

That means team members need to wear clean clothes, comb or brush their hair, and be aware of how much perfume or cologne they’re applying in the morning.

All of these variables — and others — can contribute to workplace wellbeing and have an effect on the productivity and focus of the team as a whole.

Office Etiquette And Where You Work

Office Etiquette is, first and foremost, about people. It’s about creating a safe work environment that is conducive to creativity, focus, and hard work. It’s about creating a space where customers, clients, visitors, and new hires feel welcome, valued, and part of the family.

So, while etiquette is an important part of creating the best office possible, another variable is equally — if not more — important. That variable is the space itself.

Where you base your team, and what you give them to work with, is crucial to the success of your business.

Your team needs inspiration to do their best work, they need the best tools at hand, and they need comfort, flexibility, and community.

Without these variables, employee performance suffers, business success decreases, and your professional image and company culture fall apart.

How can you provide all of these essentials that a good workspace brings without burning through your hard-earned capital or locking yourself into a restrictive and expensive long-term lease? By basing your team in a coworking space, like Bond Collective.

Bond Collective offers thoughtfully curated boutique work environments that provide an unmatched experience for startups, small businesses, and large corporations alike.

We know inspiration doesn’t come easy. When your team does experience a moment of creativity, you want to prolong it as much as possible.

Bond Collective decorates, arranges, and operates each one of its many locations with inspiration, creativity, and innovation in mind.

Bright colors, natural light, stimulating textures, and plenty of space for your body and your mind to move around — these are the unique ways in which Bond Collective brings inspiration into the work environment.

Another crucial aspect of strong company culture is having the right tools. That’s why Bond Collective offers:

• Fast, reliable WiFi and Ethernet connections

• Unlimited black-and-white printing

• Mail and package handling

• Private meeting and phone booths

• Guest reception and greeting

• Custom build-outs

• Daily porter service

• Nightly office cleaning

When you and your team don’t have to think about these features — because they’re just there whenever you need them — you can focus all of your efforts on getting the job done, pleasing the customer, and improving the way your business operates.

And don’t forget about comfort and flexibility. Bond Collective offers those as well.

All our office spaces are furnished with the highest quality of comfort and design. Many areas within Bond Collective allow for easy reconfiguration to accommodate an impromptu brainstorming session or emergency meeting — that’s flexibility in a nutshell.

Or, if privacy is paramount, take advantage of private phone booths, exclusive workspaces, and reserved conference rooms for two to 20 or more.

At Bond Collective, you’ll work side by side with other like-minded professionals and experience the connections, stimulation, innovation, and a whole host of other intangibles that your team can’t get from working in isolation.

So, take advantage of all that Bond Collective has to offer to help you improve your office etiquette, your team, and your business as a whole.

Visit any one of our many locations in the United States, including workspaces in NYC, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Austin. Or call us today to find out more.

And while you’re at it, schedule a tour to experience first-hand how the boutique work environments at Bond Collective can benefit your business.

Nicholas Sposato is the man behind the magic at Bond Collective, floating between locations to keep facilities running like well oiled machines. We’re sitting down to get to know a little more about this New Jersey native with a soft spot for animals, and Bushwick.

-Nicole Clark, General Manager

Photography: Ben Lamberty

We’ve put together a curated playlist inspired by Nick’s heavy rotation. Open in a new window and enjoy while you read!

NC: Nick! I am so excited to get to chat with you. You know, there was a lot of enthusiasm behind this interview. The people have questions! You’re everywhere at Bond Collective, you know everything, you travel to all locations and are the solution to every facility challenge–but who is the real Nicholas Sposato? Let’s find out.

NS: I am a really private guy, I always have been. I always keep my personal life separate from my professional life. Even with my close friends I’d say I’m not a details person, I don’t post much on social media, but I’m here to answer all the questions.

NC: First of all congratulations to one of the hardest working people on our team. You are the resident Bond Collective go-to for all locations, and people feel confident going to you for solutions. I wanted to know if you always knew, ever since you were a kid, that you were destined to be a superhero?  

NS: I certainly did not! I went to school for environmental science, I wanted to do something along the lines of ecological research. In 2008 the recession impacted science programs I was involved in, and when I graduated in 2010 I realized the landscape of internships had dwindled because so many programs had been cut. The hiring freeze in my field meant that I started looking around at different positions and I ended up taking a job at my best friend’s dad’s construction company.

NC: So that’s where you started to pick up these tools, so to speak?

NS: Yes, so I was 21 at the time. And I knew nothing–nothing. So I just learned. I’m a hard worker, I’m a fast learner, so I picked it all up along the way and within a few years I was the foreman of the company. I worked with that company for eight years.

NC: Oh wow! That’s incredible.

NS: I had been with this company for a while and it was time to see where else I could go and that’s what led me to Bond Collective. I went to an interview in New York City and I was like, there is no way I’m working in the city. This commute? No way.

NC: A Jersey boy through and through, what did you think about your first time meeting with the team at Bond Collective?

NS: I met Elide and Tim Bailey, and they offered me a job the same day. Something that was different right away was that on my first day on the job I was issued my work laptop and I had never used a laptop at work ever before this. In college I used computers all the time to track my field work and research, but construction sites were so different.

NC: That’s hard to imagine!

NS: I had always worked with my hands, I didn’t carry a laptop with me. I was on site managing, always moving around. My first day I logged into all of these platforms and the Google drives, and I just thought, I don’t know what’s going on. This was all so new to me. I think I had a little bit of imposter’s syndrome in the beginning.

NC: I think we all know what that’s like, but you have a history now of stepping into roles and demonstrating that you can master them.

NS: Yeah I turned into the go-to guy for everything that the company needed and people realized that they could depend on me. Electrical, plumbing, glass installations, you name it. And you know, my title is Facilities Manager, but that means that I could be doing anything depending on the day. 

NC: It’s hard to find a title that really describes the full extent of what you do, we all know you as Nick. And Nick is who we go to! What an interesting way to land your current position.

NS: My family isn’t in construction at all, if anything I’ve gone against the grain because I went to school for something completely different.

NC: I know you’re close with your family, is there anyone there who is a particular source of guidance for you or the person you go to?

NS: I would say my fiance, Becky. It’s hard to think of one particular piece of advice she’s given me but I just follow her energy. She’s definitely a major support in my life, and we’ve been together for 12 years. She’s a certified personal trainer, she works for CNBC, she’s an extrovert and just great in social situations. She’s probably my biggest supporter.

NC: Congratulations! We’ll keep an eye out for the wedding invite!

NS: Thank you! Yeah something else that’s great about Becky is that her family has these two beautiful dogs and we were all able to spend a lot of time together during Covid. I’ve always loved animals. In college I was tracking migrating songbirds in the meadowlands, catching them and banding them to track patterns every season. It’s actually what my thesis was on. It’s why I went into environmental science, to find a way to work with animals and make an impact. Who doesn’t want to save the world, you know?

NC: I can safely say that within the environment of Bond, both the team and the community, you’re still saving the world. You’re just doing it in small ways, but consistently and every day.

NC: Okay one of our favorite questions to ask everyone we sit down with is what is the best compliment you have ever received?

NS: I am a very bad compliment taker, actually. I haven’t ever been great at accepting compliments or flattery. It can be uncomfortable, but I’m working on it. 

NC: Does it feel strange to be receiving this type of attention and praise as Employee of the Month?

N: Oh totally, but I do appreciate it. Some of the personal messages I received from the team were really nice. I’m just doing my job, I like to stay in the background.

NC: They don’t call you The Humble King for nothing. Is there a particular location that you have a special affinity for? It feels like you know every single thing about every single location, is there one connection there that stands out for you?

NS: For all of the it’s quirks and curve balls, and all the crazy train stories I have from traveling there, I have to say Bushwick. Working with Pablo is also great, he’s the Maintenance Technician there and we’ve been a team for a long time. I’ve spent a lot of time there, love that crazy place.

NC: Okay now is the time, you have the stage, do you have anything you want to share that we don’t know?

NS: I actually do, yeah.

NC: Wow, okay. Fire away!

NS: I do not use curse words. At all. I tried when I was younger and it never felt right, it’s not like a moral decision it just wasn’t for me, so it’s just not part of my vocabulary. You’ll never hear me use profanity.

NC: Wow, I might not have ever noticed that. That is such a pleasant surprise! Thank you so much for taking time to let us get to know a little more about you. You are so valuable and we wanted to really celebrate all of your contributions. 

By Bond Collective Staff

The concept of the hybrid workplace has been around for years. The vast majority of businesses, though, were slow to embrace it for two very clear-cut reasons:

• The technology to support it really hadn’t arrived yet

• Management had no idea how it would affect productivity

In the wake of recent events — during which most businesses faced the choice to embrace remote work or close their doors completely — technology caught up and the business world discovered that it could maintain productivity regardless of where employees worked.

Now, the hybrid workplace is rapidly becoming the norm for businesses of all types and sizes.

In this article, we discuss the future of work and how your business can implement a hybrid workplace of its own.

The Hybrid Workplace Defined

A hybrid workplace is one that supports both in-office workers and remote workers alike.

This lies in sharp contrast to the more traditional workplace arrangement that gives more support to the in-office workers than it does to those who are part of the remote workforce.

In addition, modern hybrid workplaces revolve around three fundamental concepts:

1. Workers don’t necessarily have to schedule where they work in advance

2. Unlike the traditional work arrangement, the number of in-office workers doesn’t always exceed the number of virtual workers

3. The ratio of remote employees to in-office employees is not static and will shift from hour to hour, day to day, and week to week

This transition away from the common concept of one employee, one assigned desk toward a more fluid and flexible workplace design lies at the heart of it all and demands that businesses change the way they think about their offices and how their teams work.

We’ll discuss this idea further in the How To Create A Hybrid Workplace section below.

But first, we’ll delve a bit deeper into the theory of the hybrid workplace and how it provides an adjustable framework that governs the way businesses work.

The Theory Behind The Hybrid Workplace

While the concept of the hybrid workplace has been around for years and is fairly straightforward — an arrangement that provides equal support for in-office and remote workers — the theory behind it has undergone a radical shift in recent months.

Now, the concept has come to embody and represent the dual ideas of flexibility and adjustability — both in the physical workplace itself and in the way the business operates on a day-to-day basis.

In the physical sense, modern hybrid workplaces focus less on individual workstations and more on collaboration spaces where both in-office and remote employees can gather and work together.

In the operational sense, modern hybrid workplaces are adjustable to the overall needs of the business and allow them to customize how and where employees work at a moment’s notice.

Microsoft, for example, recently implemented a model that can change from day to day to accommodate the needs of the business, the needs of its employees, and the external conditions that might affect them.

Stage six is all open and on-site. Stage five is open with restrictions. Stage four is a soft open. Stage three is work from home strongly encouraged (during stages three, four, and five, employees are encouraged to work remotely).

Finally, stage two is mandatory work from home, and stage one is closed.

Your business may not need to go as deep into the theory and philosophy of the hybrid workplace as Microsoft has, but implementing the physical aspects of the concept — a flexible workspace that facilitates in-person and remote collaboration — is certainly worth investigating.

How To Create A Hybrid Workplace

1) Use Technology To Drive The Hybrid Workplace

Technology is at the heart of the hybrid workplace because remote work all but demands internet-based collaboration tools.

The transition from on-site data storage and processing to cloud-based storage and processing means that teams can work together in real time no matter where in the world individual employees are located.

2) Create One-On-One Spaces

In addition to collaboration spaces where the whole team can work together, the hybrid workplace incorporates one-on-one spaces where in-office employees can talk privately with their remote colleagues.

These one-on-one spaces may be as small as a telephone booth with nothing more than a chair and a table, or as large as a restaurant booth with bench seats and a table in-between.

Regardless of the size, one-on-one spaces are completely enclosed and are soundproof so that team members can conduct confidential meetings in private.

3) Invest In Video Conferencing Tools

We talked earlier about how technology as a general concept drives the hybrid workplace. But not just any old technology will do.

Your business and your team will need specific tools in order to make the hybrid workplace a reality. Video conferencing tools are the first step.

These apps allow anyone with an internet connection to meet, talk, and work together regardless of where they choose to work. Some employees may be in the office while other team members work remotely.

With video conferencing tools, it doesn’t matter — everyone can gather in one place (on one screen) to brainstorm, collaborate, and get things done.

4) Make Online Collaboration Tools Part Of Your Workflow

Another key component of the hybrid workplace is collaboration software.

This is slightly different from video conferencing software in that it allows your team to organize the workflow, communicate in real time, track changes in documents and spreadsheets, and minimize the confusion of multiple individuals working on the same task from different locations.

Apps such as Slack, Trello, Google Workspace, and many more make it easy to collaborate whether your team is together in the office or all working from different locations.

5) Try Hot Desking

As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, the traditional office model revolves around the concept of one employee, one desk.

When an employee starts work at your business, you assign them a space of their own and they report there every day.

The hybrid model is completely different because some team members may only report to the office two or three times a week, while others may always work remotely. If you assigned desks to these team members, you’d end up with a lot of unused space.

That’s where hot desking comes in. In hot desking, team members occupy workspaces on a first-come, first-served basis.

Desks, tables, and chairs have no permanent “owner,” and employees use whatever is available that fits their needs when they arrive.

This seating model requires implementing some sort of reservation and tracking system, but check-in and check-out software makes hot desking simple, efficient, and effective.

6) Offer Hoteling

Hoteling is similar to hot desking but different in one key aspect: workspaces are reserved ahead of time — typically for longer durations of several days, a week, or a month.

If a remote team member knows they will be in town for a week and would like the security and consistency of the same desk day after day, hoteling is the perfect solution.

Like hot desking, hoteling only works if you pair it with a reservation and tracking system that is easy to use and accessible to all anytime, day or night.

7) Train Your Team To Work Remotely

One of the cornerstones of the hybrid workplace is training your team to work remotely.

And while many people think of remote work as happening at home, it’s actually an arrangement in which an employee or group of employees works mainly from an alternate location and communicates with the company via email, telephone, or other digital medium.

The transition from in-office work to remote work does take some getting used to, however, and all of your team can benefit from training in this regard.

The most effective training focuses on two key aspects: technology and best practices.

Working within the hybrid workplace model requires that your team masters new technologies and tools that make the job possible. That may require extensive training.

Similarly, working remotely involves a new set of best practices that might be foreign to your team. Train your employees to apply your business’s core values, culture, and standards to their work, wherever they may set their laptop.

For more information on managing a remote team, check out these helpful articles from the Bond Collective blog:

• What Is Remote Work And How To Operate As A Remote Team

• How To Work From Home Without Hindering Productivity

8) Experiment With Innovation Spaces

In simplest terms, innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods, services, or the method by which those goods and services are offered.

Innovation is very different from the regular, day-to-day work on which your team mainly focuses, and it takes a significant shift in thinking to move from one to the other.

To facilitate that shift, set up an innovation space where the sole activity is to come up with new ways to make your product, service, or business better.

Design said space to encourage creativity, communication, and the exchange of ideas, and provide plenty of tools — computers, connectivity, whiteboards, etc. — to make moving from inspiration to reality easy.

For more on whether an innovation space can work for your business, take a few minutes to read this article from the Bond Collective blog: What Are Innovation Spaces And Can They Work For Your Business?

9) Encourage The Work-From-Anywhere Model

As we mentioned earlier in this article, a major component of the hybrid workplace is the fact that team members no longer have to report to a central office every day. They can literally work from anywhere.

While many may choose to work from home, others may find inspiration in a booth at their local coffee shop, on a bench in the park, or on a blanket down by the river.

And while that may be a big switch for employees, it’s a big switch for employers, too. But, more and more businesses are coming to the realization that their team can maintain productivity, creativity, and collaboration even under this new work-from-anywhere (WFA) model.

Where the hybrid workplace is concerned, WFA practices may involve rearranging standard operating procedures so that team members report to the office in person once or twice a week, but are then allowed to work from home (or anywhere they like) on the other days.

It all depends on what’s right for the business and what goals it hopes to reach with a hybrid workplace/work-from-anywhere program.

Again, this may take some getting used to — for both employees and employers alike — and your managers may have to repeatedly encourage the transition from the traditional work standard to the WFA model so that your team feels comfortable with the change.

For more details on establishing a work-from-anywhere model in your business, take a few minutes to read this article from the Bond Collective blog: Is The Work-From-Anywhere Model Here To Stay?

10) Embrace The Future

The traditional business model is slow-moving and, in many ways, resistant to change. The hybrid workplace, however, embraces the future and makes use of new technologies whenever they benefit the team.

Innovations such as secure group messaging, virtual reality, smart virtual assistant apps, and the cloud are changing the way entire industries do business. Will your business keep up?

To stay competitive in such a fast-paced environment, managers and owners alike need to think differently — embrace the future, as it were — and be more open to the change that innovation brings.

For more on how technology is transforming business and how your business can adapt, check out this article from the Bond Collective blog: 10 Ways Technology In The Workplace Is Transforming Business.

11) Implement A Floorplan To Boost Productivity

Under the hybrid workplace model, not everyone will report to your office every day. With less need to provide workspace for all of your team, your business can implement a floorplan to boost productivity.

You’ll now have more space to focus on accessibility, create quiet areas, and add plants to your workspace. You can also take the opportunity to rearrange in order to provide more natural light to each workstation or incorporate standing desks into the design.

All of these changes can mean a boost in productivity that is good for you, your team, and your business.

12) Go Paperless In The Hybrid Workplace

In many ways, digital storage and the cloud have rendered many of the old filing and data-access practices obsolete.

Gone is the need for hardcopy, the rows and rows of filing cabinets to hold said paper, and the massive spaces to keep those filing cabinets organized. What’s more, the hybrid workplace all but demands that your business transition to a paperless paradigm.

By storing your information in the cloud, you make it possible for your employees to access documents — and even specialized apps — anywhere, anytime.

Your team doesn’t need the hardcopy and computers at your central location to do their job. Everything is online in the cloud.

13) Automate Common Tasks With The IoT

The hybrid workplace is built on the idea that there will be fewer employees in the office at any given time.

Unfortunately, that means there will be fewer people in the office to take care of common tasks such as monitoring the toner in the printer, stocking the refrigerator, and refilling the paper in the copy machine.

That’s where the Internet of Things (IoT) comes in. IoT allows appliances, tools, and furniture to do things they’ve never been able to do before.

Technology such as refrigerators, lights, stoves, and cutting boards (yes, cutting boards) that have, in the past, been isolated from one another, are now coming online and working together.

Refrigerators that notify you when the milk is low and cutting boards that display recipe instructions are already a reality. But imagine office lights that you can program with your computer, tablet, or smartphone to dim and change color just as sunlight does.

Or think how much time you’ll save doing inventory if your supply-room shelves notify you when you’re low on toner and printer paper.

That’s how the Internet of Things is working hand in hand with the hybrid workplace model to transform the offices of the 20th century into futuristic offices for the 21st and 22nd century.

14) Learn To Manage A Remote Workforce

In many regards, making the hybrid workplace model successful means that managers have to learn new ways of doing their job.

First and foremost is learning to manage a remote workforce that you don’t see face-to-face every day. How can entrepreneurs and executives of all types learn this vital skill?

Here are some tips to get you started:

• Create core values

• Standardize the way your team works

• Encourage consistency

• Allow for flexibility

• Make expectations and responsibilities clear

• Measure performance through deliverables

For more suggestions on how to manage a hybrid team in the 21st century, check out this article from the Bond Collective blog: How To Manage A Remote Workforce From Anywhere With Internet Access.

15) Focus On Hybrid Workplace Inclusion

With a significant portion of your team working offsite at any given time, inclusion in the hybrid workplace becomes more important than ever.

Inclusion encompasses the practices and attitudes of a business that ensures all team members:

• Have equal access to the same resources and opportunities

• Are treated fairly and respectfully

• Can (and want to) contribute fully to the team’s and the business’s success

In simpler terms, workplace inclusion stresses the fact that the thoughts, ideas, and perspectives of all individuals matter and that your business considers every point of view before it makes a decision.

When members of your team don’t see each other every day, building a culture of inclusivity — be it in a traditional office or a hybrid workplace — can be difficult. The benefits, however, are well worth the effort.

The Hybrid Workplace Is Available Now

Creating a hybrid workplace from scratch can be a difficult and expensive undertaking. But when you partner with Bond Collective, we do all the work for you.

For years, Bond Collective has provided the business world with coworking spaces (the precursor of the hybrid workplace) for individuals, teams, and entire businesses.

Whether you need a private office, a suite of offices, a dedicated desk, or just a place to sit and type, you’ll find it at any one of the many Bond Collective locations across the country.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a team of one or 100, you’ll enjoy all that Bond Collective has to offer, including industry-leading amenities such as:

• Conference rooms for 2 or 20+

• Custom build-outs

• Private meeting and phone booths

• Guest reception and greeting

• Professional environment

• Unlimited black-and-white printing

• Fast, reliable WiFi

• Mail and package handling

• Porter service

• Nightly office cleaning

• Fresh fruit, snacks, and weekly breakfast

• Complimentary spa water, craft beer, and coffee

Visit any one of Bond Collective’s many locations in the United States — including workspaces in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas — to see what the best hybrid workplace is all about.

By Bond Collective Staff

If you’re ready to move your business into a workspace for rent in New York City, now is the time to make the leap.

Whether you need more space for a larger team, you want to move your business out of your living room, or you’re starting a brand-new business from scratch, the market has never been better.

Still, the question on everyone’s mind is, “How much does workspace for rent cost in NYC?” The answer might surprise you.

In this article, we give you tips for determining how much you can expect to pay for office space in The Big Apple.

The Real Cost Of Workspace For Rent In NYC

The cost of workspace in NYC varies widely depending on a number of factors, including:

• Neighborhood

• Type of office space

• Accessibility

• Image

• Amenities

These are, by no means, the only variables that affect what you can expect to pay, but they are some of the more influential.

What effect do those variables have on the price of office space? Here’s an example of two traditional offices — the kind you sign a long-term lease for — to help you understand.

Office space one is located in the Plaza District and measures in at 500 square feet. The going rate for an office in the Plaza District is $100 per square foot per year. That means that you’ll pay $50,000 per year for the use of those 500 square feet.

Now consider another option:

Office space two is located in the Water Street neighborhood and also measures in at 500 square feet. The going rate for an office in the Water Street neighborhood is $57 per square foot per year. That means that you’ll pay $28,500 per year for the use of those 500 square feet.

So, you can see that there is a huge difference between workspace for rent in one part of the city versus the same size space in another part of the city (the average hovers right around $77 per square foot per year).

Keep in mind that prices will differ in the real world, but this example gives you a good basis for comparison.

Factor in other variables that affect rental price, and you can see how prices can change quickly even for spaces that are relatively close together.

How To Choose Workspace In NYC

1) Imagine The Perfect Workspace For Rent

Before you start searching out workspace for rent in New York City, take some time to imagine what the ideal environment would be for you and your team.

Is the best office space for your business cubicles and enclosed offices? Or is it an open floor plan with flexible workspace?

Start by brainstorming on your own or with a few other managers. Then, pull your entire team into a meeting — face-to-face or virtual — and give them the opportunity to weigh in on what they think the perfect workspace would be.

You may not be able to satisfy everything your team dreams of having, but, at the very least, you’ll be able to give them what they need to be successful.

Imagining the ideal work environment before you start searching gives you certain criteria that, in the long run, will then help you choose the office that’s right for your business.

2) Pick Your Neighborhood

The cardinal rule in real estate — and workplace for rent — is location, location, location. Where your office is situated plays a major part in the price you’ll pay to work there.

As we learned from the example in the first section, there can be a significant price difference between one area of the city and another area.

That’s why the first “boots-on-the-ground” step in choosing a workspace to rent is picking a neighborhood your business can afford.

Ideal locations include:

• Flatiron

• Bushwick

• Greenpoint

• Gowanus

• Financial District (Broad Street and Broadway)

• Dumbo

• SoHo

Good news: Bond Collective offers workspaces in each of these areas.

3) Determine The Type Of Workspace You Need

Workspace comes in all shapes and sizes. In NYC, you can choose from such options as:

• Shared office space

• Hourly office space

• Coworking space

• Temporary office space

• Flexible workspace

• Office sharing (which is different than shared office space)

• Traditional office space (i.e., leased)

It all depends on what you need from your workspace.

The top end of the workspace-for-rent spectrum — the traditional, leased office — is, of course, the most expensive option.

But, if you’re willing to be a bit more flexible with your environment, you can find some of the best office arrangements in the city for a fraction of the cost of a standard lease.

4) Prioritize Accessibility

Accessibility — as in how easy it is to get to the office — is another key factor to consider when shopping for workspace to rent.

In some locations, the only way to get to the office is by car. In other locations, your employees may have access to public transportation as well. It all depends on where your office is located and how accessible it is to the people who work there.

And this doesn’t just apply to your team. You also have to consider how easy or difficult it will be for your customers and clients to find and reach your office.

As you consider various locations, identify those with plenty of accessibility options. The rent may go up slightly, but the convenience — both for your team and your customers — is well worth the cost.

5) Choose The Right Image For Your Business

Image — such things as design and decor — may not seem important at first, but it can be just as influential as the decision between cubicles and an open floor plan.

The way your office looks and feels goes a long way toward inspiring your team to give their all. It also plays a role in how your customers and clients perceive your business.

Image takes many forms, but those most applicable to workspace-for-rent environments include such things as:

• Mobile furniture

• A variety of seating and standing options

• Organization

• Multipurpose workstations

• Color

• Material

• Texture

• Light

• Plants

In many cases, those variables will cost more in rent, but they can mean the difference between a productive and an unproductive work environment.

6) Consider Amenities

When it comes to finding the right workspace for rent, your team needs more than just a good location, attractive design, and easy access.

While the right desk and plenty of room to spread out and collaborate are essential for your team’s success, amenities affect their performance as well.

Some rental options only provide one or two amenities, while others go above and beyond the industry standard in order to give your team exactly what it needs to do their best work all the time.

Top-tier setups (like those at Bond Collective) even offer free refreshments to keep your team energized during a hard day’s work.

The Best Workspace For Rent In NYC

The best workspace for rent in NYC is available right now at Bond Collective — no time-consuming search necessary.

With Bond Collective, you can choose from a variety of workspace for rent options, such as:

• Open-plan coworking spaces

• Dedicated desks

• Private offices

• Hot desking

• Hotelling

• Conference rooms for 5-20+ guests

And when you partner with Bond Collective, you don’t just get a beautiful space that fits all your needs. Each and every office option also comes with exclusive amenities you can’t find anywhere else.

Whether you rent by the hour, the month, or the year, you’ll get:

• 24-hour access

• Custom build-outs

• Comfortable furnishings

• Access to small and large conference rooms

• Networking events

• Mail service

• Networking events

• Curated events

• Daily on-site cleaning

• Bike storage

• Rooftop lounge area

• Pet-friendly spaces

• Photo and sound studio (at Gowanus, NY location)

• Complimentary fresh fruit

• Complimentary beer, coffee, and tea

• Private meeting and phone booths

• Office showers

• Guest reception and greeting

All of that for as little as $10 per day for a coworking arrangement or $13 per day for a dedicated desk (private offices also available).

If you’re looking for a spacious, well-appointed workspace for rent that gives you the professional look you need, take advantage of any one of our many Bond Collective locations in the United States, including California, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas.

To get started or to learn more about the advantages of coworking spaces for digital nomads, remote workers, and businesses of all types and sizes, visit BondCollective.com today or call to find out more about everything we have to offer.

By Bond Collective Staff

Though it may seem like something brand new, the hybrid work model has been around in one form or another for quite a few years.

If that’s news to you, we’re not surprised. The hybrid model never really took off because the technology to support the seamless integration of both on-site and remote workers just wasn’t there yet.

Add to that the fact that businesses had no idea how such novel arrangements would affect productivity, and it’s really no wonder that companies large and small were loath to implement such an unknown and untested system.

Recent events, though, forced everyone’s hand. Businesses suddenly found that the technology was, indeed, capable of keeping up with their demands, and productivity didn’t suffer as much as they thought it would.

Now, the hybrid work model is rapidly becoming the norm for businesses everywhere.

Even though many businesses have already embraced this new way of working, you may still wonder:

• What is the hybrid work model?

• Is my company ready for it?

In this article, we discuss those two questions so you can decide if the hybrid work model is right for your business.

What Is The Hybrid Work Model?

The hybrid work model is technology, practices, and procedures that facilitate remote work, in-office work, and the synergy of these two elements into distributed teams.

This multifaceted arrangement lies in sharp contrast to the more traditional work model that focuses almost exclusively on supporting the in-office workforce and marginalizes those employees working virtually.

The hybrid work model also differs from the traditional model in three other fundamental ways:

1. The ratio of remote employees to in-office employees is not static and will shift from hour to hour, day to day, and week to week

2. Workers don’t necessarily have to schedule where they work in advance

3. The number of in-office workers doesn’t always exceed the number of virtual workers

This unique shift away from the standard concept of one employee, one assigned desk toward a more fluid and flexible arrangement is the foundation on which the hybrid work model is built.

Ultimately, it demands that managers and owners change the way they think about their offices and how their teams work.

We’ll discuss a number of important variables that go into making this new paradigm successful in the Is Your Company Ready For The Hybrid Work Model? section below.

But first, we’ll investigate the theory behind the hybrid work model and how it provides a unique flexibility that can change the way your business works.

The New Hybrid Work Model Theory

As we mentioned, the hybrid work model — an arrangement that provides equal support for in-office and remote workers — has been around for years.

In light of world health restrictions, the concept has recently come to embody and represent the dual ideas of flexibility and adjustability — both in the physical workplace itself and in the way a business operates on a day-to-day basis.

In the physical sense, modern hybrid work models focus less on individual workstations and more on collaboration spaces where both in-office and remote employees can gather and work together.

In the operational sense, modern models are adjustable to the overall needs of the business and allow them to customize how and where employees work at a moment’s notice.

A business operating under this new paradigm might implement a model that can change from day to day to accommodate the needs of the business, the needs of its employees, and the external conditions that might affect them.

A multi-stage plan, for example, can adjust at a moment’s notice to dictate where and how employees work:

Stage 1. All open and on-site

Stage 2. Open with restrictions

Stage 3. Soft open

Stage 4. Work from home strongly encouraged

Stage 5. Mandatory work from home

Stage 6. Closed

Your business may not need to go as deep into the theory and philosophy of the hybrid model as this example, but implementing the physical aspects of the concept — a flexible workspace that facilitates in-person and remote collaboration — is certainly worth considering.

Is Your Company Ready?

The hybrid work model contains a number of different variables that may require significant changes to the way your business normally operates.

In this section, we give you basic suggestions to help your company make the transition into this new way of working.

1) Incorporate Online Collaboration Tools

The cornerstone of this work model is collaboration and the tools that make it possible. In the 21st century, those tools encompass a broad spectrum of old and new but most often revolve around cloud-based software.

While video conferencing (discussed below) is now done mainly online, collaboration software is different enough that we separated the two into their own categories.

That’s because collaboration tools — like Slack, Trello, and Google Workspace — are more about organizing your workflow, communicating in real time, tracking changes in documents and spreadsheets, and minimizing the confusion of multiple team members working on the same task from different locations.

2) Invest In Video Conferencing

Another cornerstone of the hybrid work model is video conferencing software. Apps such as Google Meet, GoToMeeting, Zoom, and Skype allow anyone with an internet connection to meet, talk, and work together regardless of where they’re located.

Some team members may be in the office, while others may be in another city, state, or country. With video conferencing software, your entire remote team (or any combination thereof) can gather together to brainstorm, collaborate, build a sense of team, and get things done.

3) Experiment With Hot Desking

For decades, the traditional office model revolved around the concept of one employee, one desk.

The hybrid work model is completely different because some team members may only report to the office two or three times a week. Others may only work remotely and never need a space of their own in your office.

That’s where hot desking comes in. In hot desking, team members occupy workspaces on a first-come, first-served basis.

Desks, tables, and chairs have no permanent “owner,” and team members use whatever is available when they arrive.

This hybrid seating model requires implementing some sort of reservation and tracking system, but check-in and check-out software makes hot desking simple, efficient, and effective.

4) Offer Hoteling

Hoteling is similar to hot desking but different in one key aspect: workspaces are reserved ahead of time — typically for longer durations of several days, a week, or a month.

If a remote team member knows they will be in town for a week and would like the security and consistency of the same desk day after day, hoteling is the perfect solution.

Like hot desking, hoteling only works if you pair it with a reservation and tracking system that is easy to use and accessible to all anytime, day or night.

The Hybrid Work Model Done For You

Whether your business is ready for it or not, building a hybrid work model from scratch can be a difficult and expensive undertaking. The reservation and tracking system that facilitates hot desking and hoteling is enough to give most managers a serious headache.

But why reinvent the wheel when everything you need is just a phone call away? Partner with Bond Collective, and we’ll do all the work for you.

For years, Bond Collective has provided the business world with coworking spaces (the precursor of the hybrid work model) for individuals, teams, and even entire businesses.

Whether you need a private office, a suite of offices, a dedicated desk, or just a place to sit and type, you’ll find it at any one of the many Bond Collective locations across the country.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a team of one or 100, you’ll enjoy all that Bond Collective has to offer, including industry-leading amenities such as:

• Conference rooms for two or 20+

• Custom build-outs

• Private meeting and phone booths

• Guest reception and greeting

• Expertly-designed interiors

• Professional image

• Unlimited black-and-white printing

• Fast, reliable WiFi

• Mail and package handling

• Porter service

• Nightly office cleaning

• Fresh fruit, snacks, and weekly breakfast

• Complimentary spa water, craft beer, and coffee

And, as the world adjusts to the effects of the Coronavirus, we continue striving to uphold the high standards of hospitality and design that have become a hallmark of our communities while maintaining the protocols and procedures necessary to ensure the comfort and safety of our existing and future membership.

Visit any one of Bond Collective’s many locations in the United States — including workspaces in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas — to see what the best of the hybrid work model is all about.

By Bond Collective Staff

Whether your desk is in your home office, a bustling business center, or a bespoke private office, you have work to get done. New approaches to what the work day looks like have sometimes led to some blurred lines in terms of distinctions between personal time and working hours. Not having a clearly defined and organized work area can drastically diminish how effective we are, and can lead to mid-day burnouts or long afternoons turning into evenings before the day’s work is wrapped.

To optimize your space and make the most out of your work hours, you have to have the right set up–your desk. We’ll show you how to get there in 5 easy steps.

Let’s clear some things up!

Shoulders Back, Eyes Forward

We’ve heard this time and time again, and that’s because it’s as as simple as it is crucial–posture matters. If you’re going to be looking at one thing for 8 hours a day, make it something that is placed where you need it. Instead of adjusting your body, adjust the monitor or screen placement. Monitor arms are easy to install, easily repositioned as needed, and much cheaper than back surgery. Laptop stands are lightweight and easy to transport for those work-from-anywhere days. And what’s more? Both options reduce eye strain and free up available desk space!

Living the Luxury of Less

Last year’s holiday card from the family, an overflowing cup of pens and who knows what else, the row of simultaneously critical yet disregarded sticky notes? They all deserve a better spot than the top of your desk. Office supplies in the drawer, memories on the mantle, and let’s look into project management platforms for some real efficiency! As a general rule, if you can’t think of a great spot for something, you probably don’t need it. Less is more here, give yourself the gift of cleared space, the decadence of emptiness and room the breathe.

Work Like a Chef

Managing multiple projects while fielding calls and meetings, all while staying on top of deadlines? Take your lead from professionals who know the feeling, and use the chef’s secret to keeping things organized in fast paced environments. Mise en place is a French term for “everything in place”, and it’s the cleanest way to work. Now that you’ve cleared everything that isn’t business critical from your desk and lifted that screen up, it’s time to think about what you really need on your desk and keep everything neat, lean and tidy. We’re talking one pen, one notepad, only urgent documents and paperwork, only what you absolutely need and nothing else, all now rendered easily accessible.

Right or Left?

Prioritize your dominant hand and keep these few remaining desk items near there. This will leave space for things that come across your desk, allowing for greater visibility and helping you keep track of ongoing projects. You’re moving with intention and efficiency now and you’ll be able to tell a difference straight away.  

Keep It Up

Clutter is normal, and it’s going to happen every day. At the end of your day, take one minute to clear anything that has piled up on you. Even if it’s not perfect, taking a few seconds to get that coffee mug to the sink or those documents in the filing cabinet will start your next day way ahead of the curve. Studies show that it takes roughly 66 days before an intentional behavior becomes a habit. Give yourself those 66 days, one minute every day, and in a cumulative hour’s time you’ll have built in a habit most people have put off for years. 

The secret to simplifying? Actually keeping it simple. You don’t need to redecorate your entire workspace, you don’t need to purchase expensive furniture or shelving, you may not have to spend any money at all. It’s about addition through subtraction. Giving yourself more (time, peace of mind, etc) by eliminating anything that isn’t directly contributing to the best work you can get out of your day. You got this!

Office safety is key for the success of your business and the happiness and well-being of your team. As important as it is, many managers still wonder whether they’re doing enough to keep their employees safe and engaged during their time at work.

In this article, we discuss office safety guidelines and offer tips for a safer work environment.

What Are Office Safety Guidelines?

Office safety (a.k.a. workplace safety) refers to the working environment at a company or business and encompasses all factors that impact the health, wellbeing, and safety of those who work there.

Depending on the type of business, these factors may include:

• Environment

• Work conditions

• Work processes

• Company culture

• Tools available

• Common practices

At the most basic, office safety is designed to prevent physical, mental, or emotional injury of any kind.

This includes — but is certainly not limited to — falls, impacts, ergonomic injuries, repetitive use injuries, and even mental and emotional trauma.

The office safety guidelines in the list below can help keep those events at a minimum or do away with them completely.

Office Safety Guidelines For A Safer Workplace

1) Office Safety Is Everyone’s Responsibility

During team meetings or when onboarding new hires, make it a point to stress that office safety is everyone’s responsibility.

Granted, your business sets the rules, but it’s incumbent on each individual to observe said guidelines and do their best to abide by them at all times.

Without some type of personal responsibility, office safety can quickly devolve into a “police state” of sorts where employees feel like they’re constantly being watched.

2) Dress Appropriately

Establishing a dress code is one aspect of office safety that is different from business to business.

In some cases, employees may never leave the office setting, while in other cases, employees may have to move from office to manufacturing space back to office again.

Regardless of the conditions in which your team works, it’s essential that everyone dresses according to the environment in which they spend the most time.

For some, this may mean more formal dress with few other restrictions. For others, it may mean avoiding dangling jewelry and loose hair that can get caught in machinery. For still others, it may mean full personal protective equipment such as gloves, safety glasses, and hard hats.

3) Minimize Physical Contact

In many businesses, office safety also includes minimizing physical contact or maintaining increased physical distance.

Rather than just making a rule that everyone must stay at least six feet apart, your business can be proactive by taking the following steps:

• Reconfigure the workplace to add more space between desks

• Discourage shared equipment

• Install physical barriers

• Place decals on floors and furniture to mark “safe” distances

• Set lower capacities for common areas

You may even go so far as to create hybrid workspaces that accommodate both onsite work and remote work for maximum office safety.

4) Keep Work Areas Neat And Tidy

One of the most common issues that most office employees face is clutter.

Whether it’s on the floor or on the desk, a messy workspace poses all manner of risks, including:

• Objects falling off desks

• Trip hazards

• Stretching to reach an out-of-the-way item

• Lost supplies

Adhering to this office safety guideline whenever possible also reduces the stress your team members will feel when working in a cluttered space.

5) Fully Close Doors And Drawers

When work is at its peak, team members can very easily develop tunnel vision because they’re so focused on the task at hand.

When this happens, they may not be fully aware of their environment and open doors and drawers can pose very real impact and trip threats.

Encourage your employees to close all cabinet doors and desk drawers when they’re finished accessing the space to avoid these issues.

6) Use Adjustable Equipment

The ergonomics of desks, chairs, keyboards, and other tools has become more important in recent years as office employees develop repetitive-use injuries from sitting or standing in one place for prolonged periods of time.

Managers can prevent this office safety issue by providing access to adjustable and ergonomic equipment such as:

• Standing desks

• Different types of seating options

• Ergonomic keyboards and mice

• Seat cushions

• Anti-fatigue mats

• Wrist rests

Not every employee will take advantage of these options, but asking them what they need goes a long way toward keeping your team happy, healthy, and productive.

7) Promote Employee Hygiene

Now, more than ever, employee hygiene is a very real office safety concern.

To prevent the spread of potentially harmful germs, you may need to make it policy that everyone abides by one or more of the following guidelines:

• Wear masks when needed (this will depend on local guidelines)

• Apply hand sanitizer before leaving your desk

• Wash hands before and after eating

• Cover coughs and sneezes with inside of elbow instead of hands

• Keep hands away from face whenever possible

The combination of these regulations — and others — that your business implements will depend on the type of work your team does, where they work, and the health conditions in your area.

8) Don’t Operate Equipment Without Proper Training

In some offices, the only equipment present may be a fax machine, a telephone, and a copier. These tools very rarely pose serious risk of causing personal injury, although changing out components and repairing said equipment does hold dangerous potential.

Other workspaces, however, may contain office safety hazards such as paper shredders, cutters, heating devices, and machines with multiple moving parts.

Even though these tools may be sitting out for anyone to access, make it policy that no one operates equipment they haven’t been trained for.

9) Lift, Bend, And Stretch Carefully

Picking up heavy items is an obvious office safety concern, but even stretching to reach a coffee cup that got pushed out of arm’s reach can cause injury if done incorrectly.

Encourage proper lifting and bending technique in all your employees, but also take the time to instill the merits of moving their chair or getting up completely to reach far away items.

10) Clean And Disinfect The Office Regularly

To prevent the spread of germs on surfaces in your office, increase the frequency with which you clean and disinfect all areas in the workplace — especially common areas including the kitchen, the bathrooms, the elevators, and the lounge.

If your team works in a heavily trafficked workspace with a lot of people coming and going, you may need to clean and disinfect surfaces every few hours to ensure that viruses don’t survive.

You may also need to change the chemicals you use so that they’re powerful enough to kill germs on all types of surfaces.

Office Safety In The 21st-Century Workplace

The way we work is changing. The transition from the 20th to the 21st century brought with it a host of new workplace options, including:

• Coworking

• Hot desking

• Hoteling

• Shared desks

• Virtual offices

• Day offices

• Satellite offices

• Work-from-home arrangements

• Work-from-anywhere arrangements

• Office sharing

• Temporary office space

Regardless of where your team works, though, office safety is paramount for their happiness and success.

At Bond Collective, we put the health and safety of our members and guests above all else. Whether it’s making sure that all doors and drawers are closed when not in use, or providing plenty of break space for the comfort of your team, we’ve got it covered.

Even during times of pandemic, we know your business still needs to operate. That’s why we’ve implemented office safety policies and guidelines to prevent the spread of disease.

At all of our Bond Collective locations across the country, we’ve modified the workspaces so your team members remain six feet apart at all times. We’ve increased the frequency with which we clean and disinfect all public spaces and surfaces.

We’ve made masks mandatory, set up hand sanitizer in all corners of the office, encouraged frequent handwashing, and even begun monitoring the number of people in a given space to prevent too many people from being too close together.

All of this — and more — so that you and your team can feel safe at work.

To find out more about how we make office safety a priority, call or visit any one of Bond Collective’s many locations in the United States, including workspaces in New York, California, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas.

And while you’re at it, schedule a tour to experience first-hand how the boutique work environments at Bond Collective can benefit your business.

Talking with Nicole, you easily get a sense of her personal drive, love of adventure and ability to connect with everyone around her. These are just some of the reasons she is our employee of the month! Not only does Nicole makes our East Austin location sing, she literally provides a live band for her members at Happy Hours. Most recently, she has started working with Bond’s social media team and has brought a fresh perspective to our digital presence. Along with her bold personal style, she brings a can-do attitude that yields a distinct quality in everything she does making her an imperative piece of the bond collective team.

-Lucas Keefer, Project Coordinator

Photography: Leland Ohlinger

L: How did you feel when you found out you were receiving Employee Of The Month? What was your first thought?

N: It was a big day for me. My first thought was how to thank everybody. I think sometimes employee of the month can be like just this thing that gets passed around but it doesn’t feel like that to me so I wanted to find a way to let everybody know that it felt really good!

L: Let’s start from the beginning! Where did you grow up?

N:I grew up in a town called Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Really tiny town about an hour and half outside of El Paso. Very remote and deserty, we had one stop light. It was a cool place to grow up but I didn’t have access to a ton of things like diversity or even shops. It’s made me really grateful to be in a place like Austin now. Everything I can imagine is here and for things like concerts, they come to me now!

L: What was your first intro into the hospitality industry? 

N:  I went to school in Durango, Colorado and I stayed there for 10 years. Also a really small town. That’s where I started doing events. We actually opened and operated a restaurant for a year and then sold it. It was an opportunity to test out some of the skills I started growing with hospitality, events and networking. 

L: Where did you go to school? What did you go for? 

N: I went to Fort Lewis College for English and Secondary Education. Yeah, it’s a very small liberal arts college in Durango that I was able to go to on a Native American scholarship program. I have indigenous lineage so that’s how I was able to go, a really weird thing but that’s why I went to Durango and I’m really glad I went. 

L: Very cool, so your lineage is from what nation? 

N: Potawatomi, based in Oklahoma. I don’t know a whole lot about it, it’s a very small tribe but they helped me get to school! 

L: What sparked the switch from Secondary Education to Hospitality? 

N: It was just sort of a natural thing. I think that running classrooms is a lot like running a staff at a restaurant. They are very similar because It’s all about identifying talent and skill and putting people where they will be most successful. And when I began hosting events in Durango I saw how much fun it was and how we were able to create visibility for different issues within a small community. That was really all I needed to continue on that path. We also actually hosted the first drag show in Durango history and now they have them at least once a month! 

L: What ended up bringing you to Austin?

N: Once the restaurant was sold, I really had some time to think about what was next. Our investor from the restaurant was actually relocating to Austin and he mentioned to me that I should go and test it out for a few months. Once I got here it was so cool I ended up staying and that was already four years ago!

L: That’s great! What do you think of Austin so far? 

N: It’s fantastic! Especially because during the pandemic so many people moved here from New York  and California, so everyone here has a reason why. Austin isn’t a place where you just end up, like you’re here intentionally, on a mission. So I think that really has the potential to shape the experience of a city when just about everyone there with you is there on purpose. 

L: When you began working with us, you caught the tail end of construction for the Austin office. What has it been like to see the workspace taking shape?  

N: I always thought of it as the difference between adopting a puppy and adopting a dog. You’re going to love it no matter what but you’re going to have just a little bit more of a connection with the puppy.  You feel like you’ve participated a little more in that life or process. 

L: You’re known for your events and happy hours. In the Covid  era, have you been able to bring events back or find creative ways to host without gathering?

N: During Covid we actually were able to host a few open air events outside.  We did a covid-safe rooftop sunset session with live music and also a planting party on our terrace which was great. We have these amazing 75 degree December days, so it was really second to none.

L: If you could host any type of event in the space, what would your dream event be?  

N: Definitely would be to have a live music event, I mean it is Austin so we need that. After that, I would say just using it as an opportunity to gather anyone and everyone that’s ever worked in the space to show their skills. These are vendors we’ve collaborated with in one way or another who do everything from making artisanal, pageant-level meringues to West Texas Sotol. People like this come into our space and make Bond feel inspiring and interesting, so it would be cool to bring them all together to really show off their passions.

L: Do you have a favorite space in any of our offices? 

N: Uhm ya. I had no idea that you could just walk down the hallway of 60 Broad Street and casually look over and get an unobstructed view of the Statue of Liberty!  Everyone was really low key about this but I couldn’t believe it? Like how are all these people working?! 

L: When you’re not at work what are you up to?

N: Probably getting other people to come along to different events. Pretty much anything I do I try and get at least 9 other people to do it with me.  Whether it’s brunch or going paddle boarding. Any manner of group activity! 

L: Favorite Movie?

N: First Wives Club!  A favorite movie to me is something that I can have on in the background that I don’t need to actually watch or like – wait honestly even something like Clueless!

L: What’s your go to music?

N: Not really anything that I can listen to at work… So hmm I would say like I either have CNN or NPR going at all times or it’s going to be like Doja Cat or Cardi B and that’s pretty much it. 

L: Which location are you most excited to see or go to? 

N: I want to say Gowanus, everyone talks about it so much and I feel like I just have to see it! Sounds like there’s always so much going on there and it’s really big so that’s one of the ones I’m really looking forward to seeing.

L: You’ve been working on Bond’s social media, how has that collaboration been?

N: In the past, I’ve learned stuff on the fly when promoting events but now working with other creatives and actually collaborating is such a gift. In terms of creating content, it’s been really exciting because I have a really beautiful space and also a great platform. Yesterday, we actually did some little shoots in the space. My partner is a DP and we used their steady cam to shoot three short scenes to push for social. It’s been so much fun. I don’t know that I would have felt as empowered to start those projects if I hadn’t stepped into a more collaborative role with the design team on the social media side.

L: Well, we’re inspired to see such creativity come out of BC East Austin and we can’t wait to see your short films!

By Bond Collective Staff

As remote work becomes the rule rather than the exception, virtual team building activities take on a new level of importance for the success of your business.

In this article, we discuss effective virtual team building activities you can use to build unity among your employees and in your business as a whole.

What Are Virtual Team Building Activities?

Team building, in itself, is a collective term for various types of activities — often involving collaborative tasks — used to enhance social relations and define roles within a team.

The activities serve to transform a group of individuals within a business into a cohesive team all working toward the same purpose and goal.

Historically, fostering a sense of camaraderie in your team meant gathering everyone together on-site for a video game tournament or an office happy hour. In many cases, though, those things just aren’t possible anymore.

Employees are working from home and can’t get together in the same physical space to share a meal or play board games. Everything is now done online, and team members don’t even have to live in the same country.

Enter the virtual team building activity.

Much like team building as a larger concept, virtual team building activities are meetings conducted online with the sole purpose of building trust, clarifying norms, and fostering understanding between team members.

The difficult part of the whole process is finding activities that work well online — some traditional activities do translate, while others do not.

In the next section, we discuss the team building activities that have successfully made the jump from the real world to the digital world.

Effective Virtual Team Building Activities

1) Then And Now

This activity takes a bit of preparation, but the results are well worth the effort.

A few days before the meeting, ask team members to email you a baby picture of themselves. Then, once everyone is gathered together online, display the pictures one at a time and challenge your employees to match the baby picture with the coworker.

The variations for this game are endless — teams vs. individuals, penalties for wrong guesses, a maximum number of guesses per turn — so be creative and this will quickly become one of your favorite virtual team building activities.

2) Typing Test

As virtual activities go, this is one of our favorites. For those of us who spend the bulk of the day pounding keys, our WPM is a source of pride that can lead to some healthy competition among coworkers.

There are several ways to run this game, but the easiest is to direct everyone to the same typing test website. Ideally, find one that lets everyone type the same piece of text so that the race is fair.

If you have a small number of participants, have them share their screen one at a time and try for their fastest WPM.

If you have a large number of participants, consider running all the typing tests at one time and then sharing the results.

3) Crossword Puzzle Race

At the start of the meeting, email identical crossword puzzles to everyone in the group.

Make an agreement that no one will use the internet to find answers, set a time limit, and then send small teams into breakout rooms to see who can get the most words.

If no one completes the crossword, the team with the most correct answers wins.

4) Pictionary

This virtual team building activity requires access to a digital drawing app like Microsoft Paint or some equivalent. It also requires the ability (and the skill) for participants to share their screens.

If an individual doesn’t have one or the other, they can be a guesser instead of a drawer.

Here’s how the actual game works:

1. Divide your employees into two teams (A and B).

2. Draw a Pictionary card and choose a word.

3. Direct-chat or IM the word to one player on team A.

4. Have that player share their screen and give them two minutes to draw while their teammates try to guess the word.

5. When time runs out, give team A one more guess. If they don’t get the right answer, give team B one guess as a chance to steal.

6. Switch sides and let team B draw.

Because these rounds are short, you can conduct a number of them throughout the meeting. Keep the same teams and calculate the total score at the end to determine the winning team, or treat each session as its own game and mix the teams every time.

5) Fact Or Fiction

Before the virtual team building activities commence, have your remote employees email you two facts and one fiction about themselves (make sure they label which are true and which is false).

For plausibility’s sake — and to make the game harder — tell your employees not to make the fiction too outlandish. “I’ve been to the moon” is much more of an obvious lie than, “I’ve been to the steppes of Russia.”

At the start of the game, choose someone to reveal the three pieces of information about themselves. Better yet, you go first and start the process. Then allow the rest of the group to decide what is fact and what is fiction.

To foster discussion, leave plenty of time for questions if the facts are really unique.

6) Emoji That Tune

Emoji That Tune is another of our favorite virtual team building activities. The premise is relatively simple, but the execution itself can make for a lot of laughs.

Here’s how it works:

1. Each person takes a turn sharing their screen.

2. Set a timer for three to five minutes.

3. Using a program that generates emojis (a text app, Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or some other tech), the person types out the name of their favorite song (or the one played most recently on their device) in nothing but emojis.

4. The other members of the team take turns trying to guess the name of the song until the timer runs out.

5. At the end of the time, if no one has guessed, the screen-sharer will reveal the song and share what motivated them to play it.

Alternatively, you, as the host of the virtual team building activity, can display the emojis and challenge the team to work together to guess the title.

Location And Virtual Team Building Activities

At first glance, real estate and virtual team building activities may seem drastically different. And, in most ways, they are. But, in one very important aspect, the two share a strong influence that can make or break their success. That variable is location, location, location.

It might seem like an insignificant thing, but what your team can see behind you has a very real effect on how they engage with you and the rest of the team. It can even affect their attention span and their enjoyment of the whole process.

Would you rather your team’s attention be on the dirty laundry draped over the chair behind you or on each other and the game you’re playing? Our vote would be the latter.

That’s why it’s so important to choose the right space from which to host all of your online meetings — location really is everything for virtual team building activities.

If you’re running the meeting from your home or apartment, at the very least, position the camera so that it captures as little of your living space as possible. A blank or sparsely decorated wall is best.

The best option, of course, is to run your meetings from a conference room or other professional workspace. The coworking spaces at Bond Collective are the perfect solution.

At Bond Collective, we provide:

• Conference rooms

• Private offices

• Private meeting rooms

• Private phone booths

• Fast, reliable WiFi and Ethernet connections

• Unlimited black and white printing

• Access to other portfolio locations

• And other industry-leading amenities

With access to those spaces and that infrastructure, your virtual team building activities will go off without a hitch and bring your distributed team closer than ever before.

Visit any one of Bond Collective’s many locations in the United States, including workspaces in New York, California, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas. Or call us today to find out more about everything we have to offer.

And while you’re at it, schedule a tour to experience first-hand how the boutique work environments at Bond Collective can benefit your business.

What is Work Life Balance and Understanding its Importance

Work-life balance can mean different things to people. Not only can work-life balance be unique for everyone, but their work environments can be different as well. With the various work environments and schedules today there are many options to choose from. Whether it comes to having a job in office 9 to 5, having a hybrid set-up, or being fully remote with flexible hours, each of these options has its pros and cons. How you choose to balance your life with your job is your responsibility, no matter your work setup. If you struggle with balancing your home life with your work life, or vice versa, keep reading for some tips that will help you get started. 

Change Up Your Environment 

For hybrid or fully remote employees, working at home can sometimes be a stressful situation. The home environment isn’t always suitable for work. With distractions around the house, it can be hard to focus. Boundaries can be frequently broken when you have kids at home interrupting your work day. On the other side of things, some of us can get too comfortable working from home. If you find yourself working in your pajamas from bed, it might be time to change that habit and get back to picking out a new outfit, getting dressed, and using a separate workspace from where you sleep. Creating the separation between work and home life is so important. Remember, if you do work from home, have your office as removed as possible from all the action in your house. Try setting up your office in a room with a door. Shutting your door can help you detach from outside distractions and from work at the end of the day. 

If you find yourself too comfortable, antsy, or unmotivated to work, try switching up your environment. Not only is it nice to get out of the house, but it’s also good to change up your scenery once in a while. You can mix it up by going to a coffee shop or local library to work for a few hours. If you’re states away from your company’s headquarters but want to work in a place with an office-like feel, find an office space you can utilize. Check out our office space memberships to see how you can work from one of our stress-free office setups. 

Know When To Take a Break 

A lot of people have difficulty recognizing when they need to take a break from work. When this happens, burnout takes over and exhausts you. To avoid burnout, reassure yourself that it’s okay to take a break. Everyone needs a break sometimes. Working so much to where you’re feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or stressed is never good. These emotions can be brought into your home and carried on throughout the day past working hours. If you feel like you need to de-stress and alleviate your anxiety make an appointment with a therapist online. Discuss those different feelings you are experiencing. Try talking about how you can set boundaries in the workplace. For example, stop working when you are supposed to be done. Establish that boundary with your coworkers. Don’t answer that last-minute email that came in at 4:59 P.M. It can wait until the morning. Communicating your boundaries with the people you work with will help your team dynamic by being more productive and effective. It will be easier for your team to understand why you might ask for the workload to be split up so you can meet a deadline. Working as a team to reduce each others’ stress loads and respecting each other’s boundaries is ideal. 

Another great way for you to take a break is by using your paid time off. Companies should encourage their employees to use their PTO, so take a break and enjoy life. Whether you head out on a week-long tropical vacation or spend a long weekend relaxing at home, take this opportunity to enjoy yourself. Take a mental health day when you really need a break. It can be in the middle of the week on a Wednesday. No matter when, if you need to just take a day and have no work, take it. Employers would rather you come back to work the next day feeling refreshed, clear-headed and focused. Lastly remember, although it can be tempting, don’t check your email unless you have to when you’re on PTO, there are out-of-office notifications for a reason.

Set Goals 

Being goal-oriented is so beneficial and contributes to achieving work-life balance. When it comes to professional goals, be sure to have career development conversations with your boss. Assess your career development goals and see how your performance is affecting your achievement. Be sure to evaluate what you can do to improve. If you have a team to run, set team goals. Try talking with your team about what they would like to accomplish within the quarter or year. Motivate your team to work hard together and be successful. Whether your team wants to reach a certain metric or wants to get to know each other better, these goals are noteworthy. 

When it comes to home life, one of the best ways to achieve your goals is by creating to-do lists. Lists allow you to prioritize which tasks are the most important. For example, is making dinner more of a priority than washing the windows? Making dinner should take priority over washing the windows, for certain, the windows can be cleaned after dinner or tomorrow. Implementing goal setting within your entire family will get everyone on the same page. Who knows, this might help get everyone motivated to finish the chores. You might find time to clean up your home office a bit and make it a more functional space for yourself. 

Work-life balance is up for interpretation. Whatever it means to you, make sure you are working to achieve it. Try your best to separate work-life problems and home-life struggles. Enjoy these two separate things, separately. Spend quality time with your family after a good work day and head into tomorrow with positive energy and motivation.

By Bond Collective Staff

Now, more than ever, workplace wellbeing is vital for keeping your team productive and your business successful. With all the stress and strain going on in one place after another, it’s very easy for your employees’ health to suffer.

But you can prevent sick individuals from becoming an issue by implementing practices that relieve stress and promote the welfare of everyone on your team.

In this article, we define the three major components of workplace wellbeing and give you tips on how to improve them in your business.

What Is Workplace Wellbeing?

Before we jump into workplace wellbeing, let’s back up a step and look at the more general concept of well-being.

Well-being is the state of being happy, healthy, or prosperous, and it’s this overall condition that you want to promote in your business.

Workplace wellbeing (no hyphen) — a.k.a. workplace wellness or corporate wellbeing — is any activity or company policy designed to support and promote healthy behavior and elevate the overall well-being of your team.

It’s this latter definition of wellbeing — the activities and practices — that we’ll focus on in this article with the overall purpose of improving and maintaining the state of personal well-being in all your employees.

Components Of Workplace Wellbeing

Workplace wellbeing is about more than just preventing your team members from getting sick. As we mentioned above, it’s about ensuring that your employees are happy, healthy, and prosperous while at work (and, ideally, in their life beyond the office doors).

As such, most experts divide the practice of promoting workplace wellbeing into three major categories, domains, or needs: physical, mental, and social.

Within those broad categories lie sub-categories that support the overall concept of corporate wellbeing and provide insight into how to improve the well-being of your team (discussed further in a later section).

Physical

Food

Food and water are the basics of life, so it’s no wonder that this sub-category is at the very top of the list.

If your employees don’t consume adequate calories and hydrate enough throughout the day, their energy level and overall health will suffer.

Comfort

The comfort sub-category involves such aspects of the physical as:

• Noise level

• Temperature

• Humidity

• Furniture ergonomics

• Smell

If, for example, the temperature in your office is too hot or too cold, your team members will have a tendency to focus on how uncomfortable they are rather than doing their job well.

Fitness

The fitness component of workspace wellbeing encompasses both the fitness of your team members and the active nature and design of their environment.

Fitness includes such variables as:

• Active transportation

• Interior active design

• Exterior active design

An example of fitness as it applies to your workplace includes variables like adjustable-height desks and activity-based breakrooms.

Environment

The environment sub-category has to do with the conditions in which your team works, and includes such factors as:

• Drinking water quality

• Indoor air quality

• Workspace cleanliness

• Facility maintenance

• Chemical control

Mental

Cognitive

The cognitive component of workplace wellness encompasses the way your office environment affects how your team members think, and includes such elements as:

• Types of spaces (e.g., quiet space, collaborative workspace)

• Technology

• Equipment accessibility

• Workspace flexibility

• Workspace flow

• Cognitive ergonomics

Emotional

Similar to the cognitive component of corporate wellbeing, the emotional component has to do with how your workspace affects your employees’ emotions.

Emotional factors include:

• Personalization

• Control of environment

• Design elements

• Biophilic design (e.g., the inclusion of natural objects)

Social

Connectivity

The final component of workplace wellbeing is social connectivity.

How well does your team collaborate? How well do individual members of your team get along? What is your company culture?

The answers to these questions will help define how socially connected your team actually is.

How To Improve Workplace Wellbeing

1) Emphasize Inclusion

Emphasizing inclusion within your team goes a long way toward satisfying both the mental and social aspects of corporate wellbeing.

When you promote a culture of inclusivity in your office, team members are more likely to engage in healthy activities and behaviors, support each other in those endeavors, and stick with them for the long term.

2) Support Individual Choice

Forcing your employees to engage in wellness initiatives actually works against the goal of the process.

Instead, support individual choice and create programs that allow your team members to embrace wellness and well-being on their own terms.

3) Provide Support

There’s more to building and maintaining workplace wellbeing than rolling out a program and waiting for the results.

Once a program is in place, provide support to the team to help them reach their goals and create new, healthy habits in their lives.

4) Change The Office Lighting

The color, temperature, and brightness of your office lighting all play a role in promoting workplace wellness. And experts agree that natural light is better.

Windows often provide the best natural light, but if they’re at a minimum in your office, consider installing lighting that mimics the color and temperature of the natural light in your area.

5) Implement A Fitness Challenge

Fitness challenges are a great way to promote workplace wellbeing among your team. Best of all, they don’t have to be complicated to work.

For example, challenge everyone to walk a certain distance every day — issue pedometers to help — or take everyone for a lap around the building mid-afternoon to increase energy levels.

6) Set Up Flexible Workspaces

Flexible workspaces allow easy means for your team to customize their environment to fit their needs.

Employees can move tables, chairs, and technology to create different configurations that facilitate and streamline the type of work they’re doing at the moment. This is good for the physical, mental, and social well-being of your team.

7) Carve Out Quiet Spaces

Collaboration and teamwork are integral parts of your employees’ work habits. But, sometimes, they’re going to need to separate and work on their own

Set aside quiet spaces within your office environment for focus and private work so that employees don’t get distracted and overwhelmed by the activity going on around them.

8) Add Plants

Adding plants to your office decor is a simple way to incorporate biophilic design and promote workplace wellbeing throughout the day.

These touches have the added benefit of making team members feel more comfortable. And when they’re more comfortable, they’re more focused, creative, and engaged.

9) Bring Pets To Work

Allowing your employees to bring their pets to work — or adopting an office mascot of your own — creates many beneficial effects, including:

• Higher morale

• Improved communication

• Reduced stress

• Increased productivity

• Better collaboration

All of those effects contribute to the health and well-being of your team.

10) Consider Adjustable-Height Desks

Used correctly, an adjustable-height desk is a healthy alternative to the seated work life most people associate with an office environment.

They allow for the complete customization of an employee’s workspace so that they have the mental and physical freedom to work the way that suits them at any given moment.

Workplace Wellbeing Done Right

Instead of always reacting to poor workplace wellbeing (with more and more mental health days or sick days), prevent illnesses and burnout from happening in the first place.

The suggestions in this article will certainly help. But one surefire way you can promote health and well-being is by providing a clean and efficient working environment for your team.

An attractive, worry-free workspace — like those at Bond Collective — is one of the best ways to promote corporate wellbeing and keep energy, engagement, and productivity high.

Each of Bond Collective’s shared working environments incorporates inspiring design elements, such as natural light, open floor plans, tasteful and professional decor, quiet spaces, and multipurpose workspaces.

Bond Collective also provides benefits you won’t find anywhere else that go a long way toward keeping your team members happy and healthy, such as:

• Daily on-site cleaning

• Guest reception and greeting

• Private-label mail service

• Lightning-fast Wi-Fi

• Concession food market

• Conference Rooms

• Black-and-white printing

• 24-hour access

• Bike storage

These amenities eliminate the stress of maintaining your own office and allow you and your team to focus on the work at hand rather than whose turn it is to clean the kitchen. That’s workplace wellbeing in a nutshell!

To learn more about how Bond Collective’s boutique coworking spaces can help workplace wellness, visit any one of our many locations in the United States, including workspaces in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas.

Or call us today to find out more about everything we have to offer. And while you’re at it, schedule a tour to experience first-hand how the sophisticated and professional work environments at Bond Collective can benefit your business.

By Bond Collective Staff

At first glance, room naming might not seem like an important activity for your team and your business, but it actually plays a significant role in promoting unity and brand consistency.

Sure, you could just call it “the conference room,” but what if your office has multiple such rooms? Or what if your office has meeting rooms scattered around the building? How are you going to differentiate between them all?

In this article, we delve deep into the theory and practice of room naming to help you choose epic names for all the public spaces in your office.

Why Room Naming Is Important

1) Eliminates Confusion

As we touched on in the opening paragraphs, room naming helps eliminate confusion between different areas within your office.

Conference Room One and Conference Room Two will work, as will The Large Conference Room and The Small Conference Room, but they’re extremely prosaic and don’t inspire any sort of feeling or emotion whatsoever.

With the right room naming convention, you can differentiate between any number of spaces (thereby eliminating confusion) and have a bit of fun at the same time.

2) Contributes To Company Culture

Room naming also contributes to company culture. It does this by shaping the lens through which your employees view and interact with your business.

If your company culture is straitlaced and refined, Conference Room One may suffice. But if your company culture is a bit more indulgent, a creative name reinforces that atmosphere and helps employees feel like they’re part of a team.

3) Helps Build An Inclusive Workplace

Similarly, the way you choose to conduct your room naming helps build a more inclusive workplace.

When all of your team members — regardless of age, race, and gender — identify with the behaviors, standards, and norms your business conveys, they’ll see a bit of themselves in the company culture and feel welcome to contribute.

This highlights the importance of choosing names for your meeting rooms from a large cross-section of cultural references rather than restricting the convention to one set of traditions.

Guidelines For Effective Room Naming

1) Stay On Brand

Building your brand is all about consistency. From what you call your products to the room naming conventions you choose, everything contributes to the way your customers and employees identify with your business.

Straying off brand — as in naming the meeting rooms in your hiking-equipment business after planets or 80s movies — can have everyone scratching their heads in confusion.

Do your best to stay on brand when naming spaces within your business.

2) Pick A Theme

The consistency that is crucial within your brand itself is also crucial within your room naming convention. Pick a theme that is relevant to your brand so that your meeting spaces have one thing in common.

For example, Twitter picked a room naming theme — birds — that easily integrates with their brand and makes sense both to team members and visitors alike.

3) Ensure Scalability

When choosing a theme for your room names, make sure it’s not so specific that it doesn’t allow for scalability.

If you have multiple meeting rooms but you choose the theme “film directors with movies named after a year that are about self-aware, homicidal computers” (2001: A Space Odyssey), you’ll only really have one option.

If you’re having trouble picking a theme, take a look at the options we share in the Creative Room Naming Ideas section below.

4) Ask For Employee Input

Whether you’ve yet to choose a theme or you’re already looking for specific ideas, ask your employees for their input.

Including your employees in the process contributes to company culture, helps build an inclusive workplace, and makes everyone feel like they’re part of a team rather than just cogs in the machine.

Creative Room Naming Ideas

1) Authors

Pick a genre and get to room naming. (This is a great idea for publishing businesses.)

Below, we’ve listed some ideas from the sci-fi genre:

• Bradbury

• Asimov

• Le Guin

• Butler

• Clarke

• Herbert

• Wells

• Heinlein

• Atwood

• Shelley

2) Stars

There are 5,000 stars visible from Earth with the naked eye. You probably won’t need that many for your room names, but it’s nice to know they’re there if scalability becomes an issue.

Here are some examples:

• Polaris

• Sirius

• Rigel

• Vega

• Antares

• Castor

• Pollux

• Aldebaran

3) Planets

If you choose planets as your room naming theme, you have at least eight options to choose from (nine if you’re on the other side of the Pluto debate).

Any one of these would make a great meeting room name:

• Mercury

• Venus

• Earth

• Mars

• Jupiter

• Saturn

• Uranus

• Neptune

4) Colors

People with standard vision can see millions of distinct colors. That’s more than enough for all your room naming needs. Grab a box of Crayolas and pick your favorite.

For even more consistency within your brand, decorate each room with the color scheme after which you named it.

• Red

• Orange

• Yellow

• Green

• Blue

• Violet

• Amber

• Indigo

• Turquoise

5) Birds

If birds are your theme, you’ll have plenty of options to choose from, including:

• Robin

• Crow

• Eagle

• Hawk

• Finch

• Gull

• Condor

• Jay

6) Trees

Trees are another excellent theme that provides plenty of familiar options, such as:

• Walnut

• Oak

• Ash

• Spruce

• Maple

• Birch

• Aspen

• Olive

• Magnolia

7) Plants

Plants also make a great theme because, like color, you can decorate each room with items that relate.

If you really want to get creative with your room naming, try out the Latin names of some of these popular plants:

• Bamboo

• Cactus

• Eucalyptus

• Philodendron

• Agave

• Hosta

• Aloe

8) Cities

Cities also make for great room names. Choosing names from around the world is also a great way to cultivate inclusivity in your business culture.

• Tokyo

• New York

• London

• Miami

• Bogota

• Hong Kong

• Boston

• Paris

• Kinshasa

9) Mountains

Want to communicate strength and resolve in your conference room names? Choose any of the mountains from around the world:

• Everest

• K2

• Denali

• Ararat

• Kilimanjaro

• Annapurna

• Matterhorn

• Mont Blanc

10) Scientists

Give a nod to the famous scientists who made the 21st century what it is today by naming your meeting rooms after them. Choose from:

• Curie

• Hawking

• Einstein

• Tesla

• Edison

• Copernicus

• Newton

• Galileo

Get Creative With Your Room Naming

If you want to put a bit more brain power into the room naming process, mix it up by combining themes.

Here are a few examples from big-name companies:

• Collective SOL (musicians + initialism)

• Darth Jager (Star Wars + drink)

• Mai Tai Fighter (Star Wars + drink)

• Oreo Speedwagon (food + band)

• Sushi and the Banshees (food + band)

Room Naming Done For You

Room naming is, first and foremost, about people.

People need inspiration to do their best work. They need the best tools at hand. They need comfort, flexibility, and community.

Without these variables, employee performance suffers, business success decreases, and your company culture falls apart.

How can you provide all of these essentials without burning through your hard-earned capital or locking yourself into a restrictive and expensive long-term lease? By basing your team in a coworking space, like Bond Collective.

Bond Collective offers thoughtfully curated boutique work environments that provide an unmatched experience for startups, small businesses, and large corporations alike.

We know inspiration doesn’t come easy. When your team does experience a moment of creativity — in the conference room, or wherever — you want to nurture it as much as possible.

Bond Collective decorates, arranges, and operates each one of its many locations with inspiration, creativity, and innovation in mind.

Bright colors, natural light, stimulating textures, and plenty of space for your body and your mind to move around — these are the unique ways in which Bond Collective brings inspiration into the work environment.

Bond Collective also offers industry-leading amenities, including:

• Fast, reliable WiFi and Ethernet connections

• Unlimited black-and-white printing

• Mail and package handling

• Private meeting and phone booths

• Guest reception and greeting

• Custom build-outs

• Daily porter service

• Nightly office cleaning

When you and your team don’t have to think about these features, you can focus all of your efforts on getting the job done, pleasing the customer, and improving the way your business operates.

Visit any one of Bond Collective’s many locations in the United States, including workspaces in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas. Or call us today to find out more.

And while you’re at it, schedule a tour to experience first-hand how the boutique work environments at Bond Collective can benefit your business.

By Bond Collective Staff

Virtual icebreakers are the perfect way to start your next team meeting. They’re quick, simple, and fun games that help all attendees work together, communicate, and get to know one another so that the sense of community continues throughout the meeting.

In this article, we introduce you to the best virtual icebreakers that you can use anytime to bring your team closer together and strengthen their sense of camaraderie and unity.

8 Best Virtual Icebreakers

1) Virtual Icebreakers Q & A

Virtual icebreakers don’t have to be complicated to be effective. Just asking questions is sometimes enough to forge real bonds between coworkers.

That’s the idea behind this simple question-and-answer session. Set aside 15 minutes, ask the same question of everyone — or vary the question from person to person — and really get to know your team.

Here are examples of some great get-to-know-you questions:

• Dogs or cats?

• Thick pizza or thin?

• What is your guilty pleasure movie?

• What is your guilty pleasure song?

• Do you fold your pizza?

• What is your favorite decade and why?

• What bucket list item do you most want to mark off in the next six months?

• What is your go-to book genre?

• Which song can you listen to over and over again?

• Pancakes or waffles?

• Where would you haunt for all eternity?

• Which web browser do you use most?

• What is the last book you read?

• What is the coolest/most unique thing you have within reach right now?

• What is your typing speed?

• What is your WiFi name?

• What is the last website you visited?

• What was your first online username?

If none of these questions seem right, generate a list of your own or search online for other options.

2) First Light

First Light is a quick virtual icebreaker that you can include in any meeting to get everyone thinking, talking, and working together.

It’s not conducive to back-to-back meetings because your team members will tend to answer the same way every time. But, for meetings with different groups of employees, it’s a fun way to learn how people think.

Here’s how it works:

1. Tell your team, “You’re alone in a dark cabin. All you have is one match, an oil lamp, a fireplace, and a candle. Which would you light first?”

2. Allow a minute or so for everyone to think about and choose their answer.

3. Give each participant the opportunity to share their choice and the reasoning behind it.

Alternatively, you can break your team into smaller groups and ask them to come up with a consensus answer.

Whether you ask team members to answer individually or in groups, be sure to leave some time afterward for discussion.

3) Pick One Or The Other

This is a riff on the classic “Would You Rather…” and asks participants to pick one or the other:

• The ability to read or the ability to speak

• Talk to animals or know the history of the objects you touch

• Good short-term memory or good long-term memory

• Live the rest of your life in an RV or a sailboat

• Wear a bathing suit every day or formal attire (i.e., a wedding dress or tuxedo)

As with the other virtual icebreakers, be sure to schedule in some time to allow each person to explain why they made the choice.

4) Collective Knowledge

Collective Knowledge is the perfect virtual icebreaker for new groups because it doesn’t put any one person on the spot right away.

Divide all the participants into small teams (three or four works well) and have them write down the questions you supply. Then, send each team to a breakout room and challenge them to answer the quiz based solely on their collective knowledge and without using the internet.

Ideas for questions include:

• Correctly spell a difficult word

• Guess the number of marbles after looking at a picture for one minute

• Write pi to as many digits as possible

• Name three models of a certain make of car (e.g., Toyota Corolla, Camry, RAV4)

• Name a song based on the lyrics

When all teams are finished, bring everyone back together and present the answers to see who won.

5) Guess Who

In the first few minutes of the meeting, ask everyone — or 10-15 individuals, depending on time constraints — to email you an unexpected, unique, or strange fact about themselves.

One at a time, read a fact and challenge the group to guess who it refers to. Then, encourage the individual who wrote the fact to provide some background and allow other participants to ask questions.

6) Been There, Done That

This virtual icebreaker is a simple twist on the game Never Have I Ever. Create a list of statements that begin with, “I have…”

Examples include:

• I have walked out of a movie

• I have ridden a donkey

• I have hitchhiked

• I have read a novel in one day

• I have juggled four balls

• I have been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon

• I have been trapped in an elevator

If the participants have been there or done that, have them raise their hand. Then ask one or two individuals to tell the group about their experience.

7) Rock, Paper, Scissors

Among virtual icebreakers, this is one of the simplest and can be done with groups of any size. Plus, it doesn’t require any real skill or prior knowledge — it’s pretty much just chance, so everyone at your meeting can participate without feeling bad if they lose.

As everyone is joining the meeting, create a competition bracket (like one you’d use for the college basketball playoffs) with attendees assigned randomly to one side or the other.

Then, one pairing at a time so everyone can see, challenge all players to compete in the best two-out-of-three rounds (or a single round if you’re short on time) of Rock, Paper, Scissors with their opponent.

Eventually, you’ll work your way down to the final two, who will then go head-to-head for the title of Rock, Paper, Scissors champion.

8) Name That Emoji Tune

Name That Emoji Tune is one of our favorite virtual icebreakers of all time.

Here’s how it works:

Each person takes a turn sharing their screen.

• Set a timer for three to five minutes.

• Using a program that generates emojis (a text app, MS Word, Google Docs), the person types out the name of their favorite song (or the one most-recently played on their device) in nothing but emojis.

• The other members of the team take turns trying to guess the name of the song until the timer runs out.

• At the end of the time, if no one has guessed, reveal the song and share what motivated you to play it.

Alternatively, you, as the host of the meeting, could display the emoji songs and challenge the team to work together to guess the title.

This second option is often easier because it doesn’t require that individual attendees try to do things with software that they may not be familiar with.

The Best Way To Host Virtual Icebreakers

Want to ensure that your virtual icebreakers will be as effective and fun as possible? Choose the right space from which to host your virtual meeting.

It might not seem like it at first, but what your team can see in the background has a very real effect on their attention span, their engagement, and their enjoyment.

You want them focused on the game you’re playing — and on each other — not on the unmade bed behind you.

If you’re running the meeting from your home or apartment, position the camera so that it captures as little of your living space as possible — a blank or sparsely decorated wall is best.

The best option, of course, is to run all your meetings from a conference room or other professional workspace. The coworking spaces at Bond Collective are the perfect solution.

At Bond Collective, we provide:

• Conference rooms

• Private offices

• Private meeting rooms

• Private phone booths

• Fast, reliable WiFi and Ethernet connections

• Unlimited black and white printing

• Access to other portfolio locations

• And other industry-leading amenities

With access to those spaces and that infrastructure, your virtual icebreakers will go off without a hitch and bring your distributed team closer than ever before.

Visit any one of Bond Collective’s many locations in the United States, including workspaces in New York, California, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas. Or call us today to find out more about everything we have to offer.

And while you’re at it, schedule a tour to experience first-hand how the boutique work environments at Bond Collective can benefit your business.