Steve King joined Alex Hillman to discuss trends in the industry.

Independent Workers

Traditional employment is becoming less and less attractive.  Companies are offering less benefits, job security is cute, and the amount of expected work has gone up.  This has caused people to move into a more independent worker field.

This is an interesting problem facing the workforce because more and more work is projecting to become independent.  Companies are looking to hire more independent workers. More and more people who do not want to be independent are still going to be independent because the decreasing availability of a traditional job.

Startups

There are a lot of start-ups in coworking spaces that isolate themselves from the rest of the community.  This is largely a part of the start-up experience. Startups tend to be all encompassing projects. These habits need to be broken.  Startups should spend time opening up to the broader community. Interacting with others gives different insights, perspectives, and advantages.  However, opening up can be hard to do. A lot of higher-ups set an “us versus them” mentality. This culture, that is fairly typical in the startup world, causes less interaction.

Coworking can be great for startups, but startups are not always the best for coworking spaces.  A lot of that is because of that “us versus them mentality.” They are in an environment where people are depending on the sense of community and togetherness.  Their isolation can detract from the culture that spaces work really hard to create.

Remote Worker

There are a number of inhibitors that have kept coworking from growing as fast as it could be.  For example, a spaces location can have a huge impact on who is able to be a part of it. Additionally, a lot of businesses have policies and concerns about security and legal issues that can bar them from taking part in coworking.

Remote work is growing very rapidly.  However, there are very few full-time remote workers.  Although, part-time remote work is growing very rapidly.  Coworking gives them workplace flexibility. Unfortunately, since it is not full time, people are not seeing it to the same degree.