A virtual office can help your business by establishing a professional presence, offering flexibility for onsite meetings and providing networking tools to connect team members remotely. Many business owners these days are faced with employees who want to work from home, and virtual offices can be an effective solution to bring teams together. Startups are also faced with challenges like a lack of funding to lease traditional office space, and virtual offices allow these professionals to take advantage of many traditional office features without the price tag.
If you’ve found yourself wondering whether you should pursue physical office space or look into utilizing a virtual office, below are some considerations:
Unique Ways Your Business Can Benefit From a Virtual Office
Virtual offices are the new way of working because they offer a range of benefits for traditional businesses, non-traditional startups and even digital nomads. A virtual office can be a great place to get your brand off the ground, but it can also serve as an add-on location for expanding companies and a digital hub for remote teams.
Most virtual offices have low overhead costs compared to traditional office leasing
A virtual office doesn’t require cleaning, maintenance or utility bills. Instead, business owners can claim the address of an office building for their company without the hassles of upkeep. Even if a virtual office provides on-site meeting space, the property manager usually takes care of all cleaning and maintenance.
Some virtual offices are more environmentally sensitive and focused on reducing waste
A virtual office is also a good choice if your brand wants to do its part to clean up the environment. Since a virtual office doesn’t host your workforce on a daily basis, it produces less waste than a traditional office. Additionally, since there’s no commute to a virtual office, your employees won’t sit in traffic emitting carbon into the atmosphere.
Many virtual office employees often enjoy working from home through remote networking
Working from home has become more than just a perk – it’s expected these days. Remote workers are just as productive as on-site workers, and remote employees tend to enjoy working from home compared to working in a crowded, noisy office. This means business owners can rely on improved productivity from staff, and team members can feel satisfied clocking in each day.
A virtual office can produce more motivated employees
In keeping with the above, virtual offices often create more motivated employees. Employees who feel valued are typically motivated to do their best. When your company can accommodate employees’ wishes to work from home, everyone benefits. Your employees are more motivated because they get what they want, and your business and customers receive top-notch service from happy team members.
Employers often have happier staff in a virtual office setup
According to Forbes, employees who work remotely are happier and more content with their roles. This makes sense since many people prefer not to have to commute to an office and sit all day. Instead, remote work through a virtual office promotes a better work-life balance by allowing employees more flexibility to get things done on their own terms.
Virtual offices are not just for startups anymore
As mentioned, virtual offices are great for startups, but established businesses are increasingly turning to virtual offices. With a virtual office, you can have a professional presence in a new city or state by using the physical address of an office building. Additionally, this gives your digital marketing efforts a boost since you can then rely on this address to rank higher using local search engine optimization strategies.
Using a virtual office means having no commute time or traffic
No one likes sitting in traffic, and depending on where your business operates, your employees may end up spending hours each day commuting to and from a traditional office. With a virtual office, neither you nor your employees have to worry about rush hour since clocking into the office is as simple as walking across the room to log into a computer.
Increased flexibility means using less vacation days compared to a traditional office
Virtual offices offer more flexibility than traditional offices as well. In a traditional office setting, everything has to be planned out if someone needs to be out for the day. Employees may also end up using vacation days if they can’t make it into the office due to an emergency or family obligation. With a virtual office, it’s much easier to plan around the various schedules your employees have because they can always log into work early or late to complete tasks to meet deadlines.
Employers using virtual offices have access to worldwide talent
When you rely on a traditional office workspace, you’re generally limited in who you can hire. Most business owners who use a traditional office can only source talent from nearby cities. A virtual office opens up your prospects to include talented professionals from all over the world. This means you can put together the all-star team your customers deserve.
A virtual office often means you can save money on technology costs
Traditional office space may come with a lot of amenities, but in most cases, employers have to supply their own technology. Costs for computers, laptops and even the coffee machine in the breakroom all come down on you as the company owner, but a virtual office removes many of these costs. Although you can choose to supply remote workers with laptops and smartphones, many employers who use virtual offices rely on employees to supply their own equipment. This saves on technology costs, and it also reduces costs for technology upgrades and maintenance.
Virtual offices usually result in productivity increases across the board
When your employees are content with their work-life balance, it’s much easier to stay productive. Work-from-home arrangements through virtual offices often allow the kind of work-life balance employees desire, and in-office work may cause productivity to go down.
You can maintain a professional address without needing a physical location
One of the biggest benefits of a virtual office for startups that need to establish a professional presence is the ability to share an address with a physical office building. If your team is virtual and your headquarters is your home office or even your bedroom, it can be hard to get potential customers to take you seriously. With a virtual office, you get to use the address of a real office building to put on your company contact information, your website and other places where it will boost your professional image.
Many feel that virtual offices offer a better work-life balance
Remote workers who connect with employers through virtual offices tend to enjoy a better work-life balance, and this is important as the home lives of workers are shifting. These days, many people find that they need to take care of family members or have other obligations that often keep them distracted in a traditional office. Virtual offices, however, can provide much-needed balance to get things done and still complete work assignments.
You can enjoy hassle-free expanding or reducing the team in a virtual office
In a traditional office space, adding to your team means finding a place for new hires to sit, adding to your office security system and even taking new hires on the traditional office tour. If you need to let an employee go, office security may need to be notified to escort someone out, and you then need to change security codes or deactivate credentials. With a virtual office, however, you can add or remove employees without all of this hassle, making it easy to remain flexible.
There’s less office space to worry about cleaning and maintaining
Because there’s no physical space to maintain with a virtual office, there’s no cleaning or maintenance to take care of. This saves time, but it also saves money.
Having a virtual office means you can provide a professional image to customers
In the age of the Internet, perception is everything. Even if your company provides professional services and does great work, customers may not take you seriously if you don’t have an address in a professional office space. A virtual office provides this address for you so you can be proud to tell everyone how they can contact your company.
Virtual offices boost your digital marketing and support local SEO with a physical address
The ability to use a physical office address in conjunction with virtual office services can be a big boost to your SEO efforts online. Google and other search engines look for local citations that reference your business on the web. In these, you want to match name, address and phone number across all references to your company. Since you can use a physical address with your virtual office, you have more opportunities to create citations online that can boost your local SEO strategies.
A virtual office can add legitimacy
Consumers are inundated with ads these days, meaning their attention is fleeting. If your business doesn’t come across as legitimate, it can be easy to ignore. With a physical address, answering services and other perks of using a virtual office, your company is more likely to be taken seriously by customers.
Virtual offices give you the chance to expand your presence in other locations
Expanding your company into a new area can be a huge hassle when you need to find new office space and get everything moved in and set up. A virtual office allows you to expand because you simply work with your virtual office services provider to find an address in a new area. This address can serve as your new location, giving you the chance to start marketing your products and services locally in new cities across the country.
What is a virtual office?
A virtual office is a type of office in which a property owner allows a business, often a startup, to utilize the address of a physical office building. The business does not occupy the office building, but instead, it lists the business’ address as the office building. In some cases, virtual offices will also provide networking capabilities for virtual tenants to connect team members together remotely. Also, some virtual office providers will let businesses use physical office space for meetings on a temporary basis.
Is a virtual office right for your business?
A virtual office may be right for your business if you don’t want the expense of a traditional office lease but still want to take advantage of many of the benefits of a traditional office. Business owners who work with remote teams can typically benefit the most from a virtual office, but even larger, more established businesses can benefit from these arrangements due to the flexibility they provide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Because the virtual office concept is still relatively new, many business owners have questions about whether a virtual office is the best option. Below are some frequently asked questions and answers about choosing a virtual office:
What are the benefits of virtual workspaces?
Virtual workspaces offer a number of benefits, including the ability to maintain a professional address without the hassles of leasing a traditional office space. Many virtual offices also provide networking capabilities that help startups connect remote employees across the web as if they were in an office space together. Lastly, a virtual office can save money because virtual offices don’t require all of the overhead costs that come with a traditional office.
What is the impact of virtual office services?
Virtual offices have proven to have a positive impact on employee commute times and work-life balance. Because remote employees don’t need to commute to a virtual office, this also reduces the impact a business has on the climate.
What is the purpose of a virtual office?
The purpose of a virtual office is to provide business owners with the ability to have a physical address for their companies without needing to lease traditional office space. This presents a professional image, and in some cases, virtual office space is available to allow in-person meetings on a limited basis.
What are some virtual office advantages and disadvantages?
Virtual offices have advantages and disadvantages, and how much these affect your choices comes down to the needs of your business. The advantages of a virtual office include maintaining a professional presence without the cost of a traditional office lease as well as being able to accept mail and packages at an office space without the high cost of a traditional office.
Because virtual offices don’t offer daily workspace for employers and their teams, this can be seen as a disadvantage if you require such a workspace. Additionally, not all virtual office providers offer spaces to hold meetings, and instead, they merely allow business owners to utilize their addresses in writing. Once again, this can be a disadvantage depending on your company’s needs.
