“Why are coworking spaces here to stay?” rhetorically asked Forbes, the prestigious American business and finance magazine founded in 1917, exactly one year ago.
Today, the paradigm shift in the world of work is a proven fact. The comprehensive restructuring of what was commonly understood as work has undergone a turn of the screw, following episodes such as the global economic crisis. The question posed by Forbes resonates strongly when coworking has become just another word in our social dictionary.
In Spain, coworking spaces already total more than 200 offices throughout the country, a figure that is expected to double by the end of this year. Conceived as spaces in which individual and group work have the same weight, the popularity of coworking has been sustained by the emergence of entrepreneurs, startups or freelancers, who have sought answers and alternatives to renew the ways of working in places where not only the expense is reduced but also the interaction or exchange of ideas becomes a creative flow favorable to both sides.
For this reason, much is said about coworking spaces as physical stations where workers are immersed in a modern, creative and multipurpose work context. The article published by Forbes acknowledged this new integration. The mix between “technology and people seeking to make efficient use of their space” revives the idea of a “mobile employee” who, while not assuming the characteristics of the common entrepreneur, pursues similar goals. In the long term, this has made it possible to establish a dynamic of multi-professional integration, resulting in what we understand today as coworking space and also generating a gradual demand for these spaces.
But the sustained growth of coworking spaces is not just a one-sided issue. In Spain and Europe, not to mention the United States, sites have been developed in parallel for the free or paid promotion of these spaces. Online directories have become key tools for positioning and positioning both coworking spaces and coworkers. Cases such as Indizze, which has integrated coworking offices as services for companies in its functional scheme, allow the inclusion of these centers in search lists that resize these workspaces. It is no longer just an office, but a business service for freelancers, entrepreneurs, creatives and other integral professionals looking for new work alternatives.
Coworking offices have become the future of work and have brought to the table other alternatives that confront the classic paradigms. The Spanish newspaper El País did not hesitate to recognize its importance in “the labor market to become an anti-crisis social phenomenon”. Just as the Forbes article closed, they concluded that coworking was serving as a model for teaching “corporate America about how people interact and what makes them effective at creating” ideas or content. This, he continues, “is really defining the future of how companies interact with each other on a deeper level.”