5 step plan to seize the opportunity to provide pop-up workspace.

Our earlier post identified the opportunity to offer ad-hoc work space. Here we take you through the steps to get there.

What people want your space for NOW

Organisations have been pleasantly surprised at the success of remote working. But they still want to offer people work space as an alternative to being at home, and get people together to foster collaboration and social networks.

Making the office safe can be disruptive and impractical, and in any case teams are now stationed in their communities, not in cities.

Some people have served notice on their offices to cope with the economic hit of the crisis. They simply don't have a space anymore.

But they want space. To work from. To collaborate in. In amongst communities with good access and parking. Without commitment.

What to do about it

1. Review your spaces in line with regulation

What can you offer at your venue?

• Look at the space you have on site

• Work out the capacities you can offer with 2m social distancing in place

• Work out how to create safe routes in and out of the building

• Look at signage required and access to hygiene stations

2. Get setup

Prepare for service

• Add suitable desk* configuration based on social distancing rules and access to power

• Look at broadband performance and upgrade where necessary

• Plan for how refreshments can be provided without self-service - order system and delivery to the room. Work with a local supplier if this isn't available on site

• Look at a suitable pricing model - £5 per person per day, £8 with tea / coffee, bulk booking discounts

• Get your Covid safe processes and signage up

*Use existing resources where possible to create pop-up tables and chairs for people to work from.

3. Engage your community

Raise awareness for what you are doing

• Go through your database of previous event and meeting bookings

• Introduce the service by email and offer a booking incentive

• Find a way to reach out to your local community - parish and local councils have Facebook pages you can post to to promote what you are doing

• Use the community angle to soften the sales message - 'helping provide services locally that will have a knock on effect for weekday trade for other service businesses'

4. Broaden your marketing reach

Push what you are offering on large space aggregator sites more focused on business than events. They all have free listings (with commission on bookings):

• Meetings Booker- focus on meetings market

• Coworker- focused on people looking for coworking communities

• Dispace- focused on community pop-up spaces

• Andco- focused on freelancers looking for social collaboration

5. Manage your bookings

Bookings will be higher volume, lower value and more vanilla. Having a system to automate online booking and payment, customer comms, check-in and ordering food and drink will keep overheads low and align well with social distancing rules.

• ***Plug coming****

• But it works

• Check out the services we can provide with Switch

• Advertise services through your website

• Online bookings

• Add food and drink packages - your own or local suppliers

• Payment and cancellation services

• Automated customer comms

• Online arrival confirmations

• Covid safe workflows