What to consider when choosing between a traditional and a virtual office?
1) Convenience and customer trust
2) Flexibility and accountability
A better setup for some types of business, virtual offices have started to replace the long-standing traditional office. Increasing preferences for convenient working conditions, where shortcuts can be offered more easily than with old techniques, have led many new businesses to serviced offices. However, there are more and more companies using the traditional office environment, because the traditional office represents a conception and a habit from the past. If you are planning to start a business or restructure your business, one of the most important things to consider is the choice of office. Both traditional and virtual office environments have their advantages. So to determine which type of office is best for your business, you need to choose what you need most in your business.
Convenience and Customer Confidence
Virtual offices basically allow employees to do all their work wherever they want, while prioritizing employee convenience. Since most people who work in virtual offices do so from their homes, it is a very flexible way of working. In virtual offices, there is no need to worry about the stress of commuting to and from a workplace. Many entrepreneurs today prefer to work in a virtual office because high rents and costs make it difficult to afford a traditional office.
Although it is possible to do business at more affordable prices than a traditional office, it is a little more difficult to gain customer trust in virtual offices. Because in some virtual office services, the business owner may not be offered a physical location. This means there is no place for the business owner to interact face-to-face with their customers and team. Traditional offices have a physical location where all employees and customers go to conduct transactions. Having an office space increases trust in the business, as it allows customers to interact with the firm.
NOTE: To compensate for this problem, virtual offices often create spaces where business owners can interact face-to-face with their customers or team. Therefore, when hiring a serviced office, it is important to pay attention to whether the package includes meeting services.
Simply put, your choice of each office layout will increase the ease of your work (virtual offices) or the customer trust you gain (traditional offices). Both can gain each other’s strength as the work progresses.
Flexibility and Accountability
The biggest difference between virtual offices and traditional offices is the working hours. Traditional offices often have fixed working hours that are heavily monitored by management. The average employee usually works 9 hours and takes two 15-minute breaks and a 1-hour lunch break. This is why those who work in traditional offices need to track their time, both when they are working and when they are on break. However, in virtual offices, employees have the freedom to do whatever they want with their use of time. The only thing they need to keep track of is the deadline. Apart from that, people working in virtual offices choose when they want to work. If you want to control your working hours, a virtual office is the ideal choice. Virtual offices allow you to work at any time of the day, for as long or as short a time as you want, and anywhere in the world. Because virtual offices are result-oriented. Virtual offices are a great option for people who want to work from the comfort of their home.