The Space Between Isolation and Loneliness

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The Space Between: Isolation and Loneliness

“There is something that feels so good about sharing your life with somebody”

In the 2013 movie Her, a lonely writer named Theodore falls in love with an intelligent operating system named Samantha. And unlike other sci-fi movies, Her hits close to home. What with the uncanny similarities of today’s technology – smartphone devices and wireless earbud – it makes you wonder how long till Siri gains consciousness.

At first sight, you’d marvel at the strange romantic relationship between the two characters have and how dreamy the experience must’ve been to have such a special connection with anyone, or anything for that matter, but underneath all the poetic dialogue, lies a premise that’s too strong to ignore.

No, it’s not the feeling of fear that the time Theodore is in probably isn’t that far from happening. And no, it’s not the creepy premise of a man falling in love with an operating system – though that sounds atrocious itself.

It’s this: the isolation and loneliness we all share and our vain attempts of fulfilling that craving with technology.

A derivative scene from the 2013 movie Her, distributed by Warner Bros. Written, directed and produced by Spike Jonze.

Samantha was customized to fit the needs of Theo , almost as if her algorithm was made for lonely men.  She can sense his sadness and acts to mends it. Yet in the end, it still doesn’t work out. Because Theo’s feelings, even if it looks like an arithmetic problem to Samantha, can never be solved by ones and zeroes.

With the emergence of technology sitting right in our pockets, we turn to them for the instant feedback they give and soak up the momentary, fleeting moment of satisfaction that we get. A smartphone might create an output that can easily fit our needs with the data we give to them but it’s still no match to the depth of human interaction.

Emotions are emotions. They are subjective and intangible. You can’t use algorithms, codes and math equations to solve isolation and most specially loneliness.

The Reality

What makes Her even more relatable other than the technology present, is the isolation Theo and almost everyone in the movie, goes through.

In a recent presentation at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, research have shown that loneliness could pose an even greater threat to public health than obesity. Other studies have also said that the risks it possess even rivals those of smoking.

Experts believe that loneliness alone can lead to a dozen of issues like sleep deprivation, increased levels of stress hormones and can aggravate the immune systems. Any of the aforementioned harmful effects can put people at a much greater risk.

Loneliness is more fatal than obesity & smoking.

To make things a little scarier, they don’t think it’s going away soon. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, Brigham Young University’s professor of psychology says that 42.6 million adults ages 45 and above suffer from chronic loneliness and that this number is expected to rise in the coming decades. The General Social Survey of 2016 have also said that more and more people are feeling tired and lonely at work, saying that burnout at work isn’t just about exhaustion, but loneliness as well.

Downsizing

Though it is important to note that strategies for curing or reducing loneliness can vary among one another, social interaction is one of the best ways to downsize its negative impacts.

According to Holt-Lunstad, a person can reduce loneliness by taking a more proactive approach to socializing by putting down smartphones and planning get-togethers instead of lazily scrolling through your Facebook news feed. An increase in daily face-to-face interaction has been seen to reduce loneliness in most cases.

More and more freelancers and young professionals are turning towards a new kind of office space – one that fosters a healthy dose of isolation and social interaction.

Coworking: Reduce Loneliness, Start Socializing

Behind Coworking Spaces’ success is the increased social interaction it offers to its members. Made for workforces from different industries, coworking spaces gives its members the freedom to interact and collaborate, socializing isn’t forced and members can choose when and how they communicate with others. It creates a place wherein an individual joins as a ‘me’ and becomes part of a greater ‘we’.

In the end of the movie, Samantha leaves Theo, along with the other OS’s in the hopes of becoming more than what they are made for. While Theo goes to his close friend Amy, whose own OS left as well, for comfort.

Though a pyrrhic victory – learning a lesson by having his heart broken – Theo’s connection with Samantha was necessary for him to re-evaluate his view of where to find love and to learn the importance of social interaction.

Moral lesson? Don’t wait until an operating system breaks your heart to force you to socialize. Join our community now!

The Perfect Office Space: Seat Leasing and Coworking Spaces

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The Perfect Office Space: Seat Leasing and Coworking Spaces

Now that you’ve materialized your idea and have covered the paperwork as well as the finances, it’s now time for you to face the headache-causing process of finding the perfect office space for your business.

For years, architects have recognized the effect of your surroundings to how you work. Your workspace heavily influences your overall satisfaction and productivity. More tasks can be accomplished quickly and efficiently when you are able to focus. Moreover, the space containing your business can develop your company culture – something that is very hard to define and even harder to shape.

The right office space can also help people communicate better. And with the surge of tools like Skype or Hangouts, the chances of “lost in translation” happening is very high. Though there is no denying that the technology nowadays have helped us communicate with one another regardless of our location, nothing beats face-to-face interaction.

In addition to this, research have said that out of the 3 elements that contribute to communication – word choice, tone of voice and body language – 55% of it comes from body language. Finding a space that helps your team communicate better can convey vast amounts of information that may not be seen through “non-personal” communication.

Types of Office Spaces

There are different kinds and type of office spaces that can fit the need of your company but among them, two types have become increasingly popular over the years.

Seat Leasing

Seat leasing deals provide organizations the essentials in starting up a business or a new site from seats, workstations, computers, conference rooms, internet connection and IT support. Some may even offer Human Resource Services, Recruitment, and Payroll. The list of beneficial factors that seat leasing offers doesn’t only end there.

For one, it could save you a lot of money. Instead of investing in your own office, you can lease the exact number of seats that you need. Other else than that, it saves you the time of going through tons of paperwork and buying the needed furniture. Secondly, seat providers give you modern facilities like high end PCs and fast internet without the need of maintenance – they are the ones who’ll be dealing with all the technical support.

Lastly, seat leasing companies can be found in the major cities of the Philippines, making it more accessible to your client and employees.

Coworking Spaces

Originating from offices in New York City, coworking spaces are membership-based workplaces that offer a more comfortable work area for the freelancers and entrepreneurs of this generation. Not only will they be providing an affordable workplace with a guaranteed smooth sailing business operation, it will also give you a change of scenery.

With an open space set-up, they usually include a reception area and shared conference rooms. It offers flexible lease terms from a day up to 1 year and has an open/collaborative look and feel to it. Recent studies have shown that a large number of employees strive from office environments like these where they have the ability to spend some time alone to refresh themselves.

With the availability of the different kinds of office spaces nowadays, finding the perfect location is now easier. It won’t be that hard to find the perfect office that would cater to your needs, help you operate easily and maintain a healthy office environment for the benefit of your growing business. Want to know more about seat leasing and coworking spaces? Interested in finding what suits your business better? Talk to us now.

Introversion, Collaboration and Coworking

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Introversion, Collaboration and Coworking

In a common workplace setting, there is a prevalent mixture of personality types among its members. Some employees are Introverts, some are Extroverts – and somewhere in the middle, exists Ambiverts. Distinct differences have been set among the mentioned personality types – Introverts love spending their time by themselves, Extroverts thrive in meeting new people and Ambiverts prefer to have a separate time for social interaction and “Me” time.  And over time, negative stereotypes started to create a gap between the two main personalities, growing bigger and bigger over the years. This huge existing gap between Introverts and Extroverts have led people to believe that working together or collaboration will not be easy. But is it really that hard?

Recent studies have said that for collaboration – the kind that gives birth to fresh creative ideas – to spring, there is a need for a balanced group and individual work. That despite of random introversion and the tendency of conflicts to arise, embracing how opposite they are from one another is a healthy way for them to collaborate brilliantly.

Another helping tool for introverts and extroverts to work well together is an private office space, the kind that allows room not only for group work but the kind that can give its members alone time to refresh themselves. And with the increasing demand of having an innovative workplace in the Philippines, “Coworking Spaces” became the latest trend in the business industry.

Coworking spaces are the newest kind of workplaces that allow freelancers and young professionals from different industries to work on their individual projects alongside one another. Moreover, individuals can choose the work environment they think would be best for them. They have more freedom to work in a quiet space to focus or in a shared space to allow collaboration and interaction.

Both personality types – despite of how diverse they are from each other – remain to be valuable to a team. Introversion and extroversion can definitely coexist and further develop a symbiotic relationship. And with the right coworking spaces, creativity will flow. Contact us today and allow brilliant collaborations to be created.

Coworking: The Most Prominent Type of Flexible Workspaces

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Coworking: The most prominent type of Flexible Workspaces

The recent rise of the trend remote working or flexible working, doors have opened for a brand new kind of workspace – the one tailored to meet the specific needs of the current labor force.

Flexible Workspaces

Flexible Workspace is the kind of office space, either private, shared or a combination of both, that offers short-term leases with a minimum size of fully furnished and ready-to-use seats. These offices may include other services like telephone lines, fast internet, meeting rooms and a reception are among others.

Where It All Started

The strong shift towards flexible workspace was first observed in the UK market during the year 2015 to 2016. As of writing, its rise continued to spread in many of the world’s top markets.

In the US and UK market, a double-digit growth for the usual size requirements was seen – highlighting the increasing take up of flexible space by corporates. Lead cities in Asia also reported similar results while Australia seemed to have had a particularly strong year as well.

The current global flexible office market totals around $21 billion – showcasing compound growth of around 21% over the past years. UK and the United States are still the largest markets but Asia-Pacific show strong signs of growth despite contributing a small part of the total.

Different Flavors

In most markets globally, there are only two major classifications of flexible workspaces – serviced offices and coworking spaces but in the current Philippine market there are 3 types: service offices, hosted service firms and coworking spaces.

Serviced Offices

Providing the most fundamental services, they are the pioneers of flexible workspace. Major players have multiple sites in cities and even countries, being the first one to enter the market. In addition, they are most likely to be located in prime locations within the central business districts. Serviced offices for business travelers, expatriates and multinational companies entering the market for the first time.

Hosted Services Firms

Despite of being similar to serviced offices, hosted services was considered as a sub-group in the Philippine market due to the former’s relevance to the strong presence of BPOs in the country.

Hosted Services entered the market next, differentiating itself by featuring back office, non-core services like information technology (IT) services, human resource staffing and even accounting. The aforementioned services help clients focus on their core businesses. Perfect for small business process outsourcers (BPO) and other traditional companies for these firms are relatively agnostic towards prime locations and would rather focus on quality infrastructures at a reasonable price.

Coworking Spaces

Aside from being the newest type of flexible workspace, coworking spaces also happen to be the fastest growing trend among the 3 with an average of 61%.

With a contemporary design made to integrate the comfort of a home, the ambiance of your favorite café and the functionality of your office, Coworking Spaces differentiates itself with the community it creates. Perfect for start-ups and freelancers, the operators encourage their tenants with similar interests to collaborate in a shared working environment. In addition to this, the members of the community can have access to contact details of other members in the community to foster cooperation. Learning sessions are also held, where seasoned industry experts share what they know to equip the members with the skills and tools that might help their respective businesses.

According to reports the forecasts are straight forward, the growth of flexible workspaces will continue to flourish. An estimated 1.2 million people worldwide will have worked in one of the 3 kinds of flexible space by the end of year. With this trend dominating the market, have you considered shifting? Or is it still debatable? Either way, we’d love to hear what you think about this strange yet innovative change in the labor force.

Seat Leasing versus Traditional Rental Office Spaces

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Seat Leasing versus Traditional Rental Office Space

From the location, building design, aesthetics and its features, there are numerous crucial aspects in establishing the first ever office of your business. But among them are 3 factors that could make or break the big decision – the company’s long term goals, current situation of the business and the amount of capital. Not only that, the process itself of acquiring the needed papers for your office to be registered takes time and is often a tedious task.

There are several things needed to be considered before choosing the office space that you need. Moreover, it comes with a heavy responsibility – making sure that the choice you are about to make won’t affect your business operations in anyway.

Should you settle for traditional rental office spaces? Or to lease a few seats for a couple of months? Which will be more efficient? To help you decide which one is better, here are a few things that differentiate renting a commercial office space from leasing seats.

Seat Leasing

Seat leasing deals provide organizations the essentials in starting up a business

Seat leasing deals provide organizations the essentials in starting up a business or a new site from seats, workstations, computers, conference rooms, internet connection and IT support. Some may even offer Human Resource Services, Recruitment, and Payroll. The list of beneficial factors that seat leasing offers doesn’t only end there.

For one, it could save you a lot of money. Instead of investing in your own office, you can lease the exact number of seats that you need. Seat leasing in Ortigas, Makati, Mandaluyong or Eastwood City can range from $195 to $225 per month depending on whether it will be shared or not. Moreover, the required occupancy is only a minimum of 6 months.

Another thing to note is that seat leasing saves you the time of going through tons of paperwork and buying the needed furniture. No need for the exhausting tasks of government permits and what not.

Secondly, seat providers give you modern facilities like high end PCs and fast internet. Not only will they save you from investing in furniture and equipment, they will also be saving you from staffing requirements needed – utility staff and the likes.

Lastly, seat leasing companies can be found in the major cities of the Philippines, making it more accessible to your client and employees.

 

Traditional Rental Office Spaces

Traditional rental office spaces have a long term contract ranging from a minimum of 3 years.

Other else than outright owning an office space entirely, renting your own dedicated commercial office space gives you the freedom to do whatever it is that you want – it gives you complete control over the environment needed for some businesses.

Traditional rental office spaces also have long term contracts ranging from a minimum of 3 years. Though not flexible, it gives business owners the chance to build equity that can be used as collateral for when you decide to expand in the future. Moreover, this kind of office space is practical if you are predicting a steady growth of the company

However, it is important to note that there are separate costs for smaller details that are often disregarded like furniture, facilities and maintenance of your office – this alone can consume time and funding you could’ve spent on important aspects of the business.

Remember that before you make the big decision of choosing a new home for your business, it’s important to check your finances, your scaling and whether this move will open doors containing opportunities for you. Whether you’ve already made up your mind or still debating, we’ll be more than willing to provide you with more information, talk to us now!

The Rise of Flexible Working

The Inevitable Rise of Flexible Working

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the rise of flexible working

According to Robert Frost, “Freedom lies in being bold”.

It takes a certain amount of courage for a leader to give its subordinates the liberty of reaching their objectives in the best way they see fit. And though it can be seen as a great leadership move, it is very challenging to define its boundaries.

In a workplace environment, freedom is applied in the ability of keeping non-traditional hours – contrary from the 9-to-5 setting the majority of the workforce is used to, work from home, taking limitless vacation days and exercising creative approach in meeting career goals.

Despite of how taboo the concept of flexible working may seem, a significant shift in the workforce has been observed over the past years.

An increasing number of employees are turning away from the traditional model of work hours. New ways of operation continue to grow in popularity, transforming our offices and giving us a precaution for a big change that’s about to happen in the near future.

The Numbers

Last year, the industry has been exposed to more information about remote work. In India, 53 percent of their workers prefer to work from home. All the while in the United States, 38 percent of employees say that they are able to work from home at least once a week.

Over in the United Kingdom, the number of people working from home grew by 800, 00 to more than 4 million, and an estimated 1.8 million of workers would do so if allowed. And in developing countries, an estimated 10 to 20 percent of managers work remotely.

Private companies and even governments have also begun to formalize remote work. In Saudi Arabia, 500 companies in 70 cities allow people to work remotely. On the other hand, Japan’s Toyota announced that it will allow one-third of its workforce to start working remotely. Turkey also took into consideration the discrimination remote workers get based on how they perform their tasks.

Surveys and statistics prove that this shift towards flexible working is real and not a myth.

infographicflexible

The Aftermath: Inevitable Rise of Flexible Working

With the surge of overruling the traditional ideologies the workforce have had for decades, the demand for a kind of workspace that allows freedom to its employees have materialized.

And in the year 2012, a new type of office space was born:  Coworking Spaces

With the growth at an average of 61%, coworking spaces can now be found in countries around the globe. The market have skyrocketed over the last three years and according to the Global Co-working Survey, nearly 1.2 million people worldwide will have worked in a co-working space by the end of 2017.

With an open office setup, its design aims to integrate the comfort of your home, ambiance of your favorite café and functionality of an office. Coworking spaces is different from the traditional workspace in a sense that it gives you more freedom to choose the type of set up you think would be best for you and creates a community that fosters collaboration.

Getting sick of your desk? No worries! Grab your things and move! In need of social interaction? Why don’t you join the rest of the crew in the lounge area? Just imagine, no restraints on what you think works well for you.

Can you see it now? If not, hit us up and we’ll give you a sneak peek on how liberating it is to be free.

Don’t Chain Yourself to a Desk!

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Don’t Chain Yourself to a Desk!

Over the years, experts have observed a significant change in the traditional 9-to-5 work day to the point of saying that the eight hour grind may soon be an exception instead of a rule. According to the communications firm Euro RSCG Worldwide, one of the top 12 trends for 2012 is that employees of the Generation Y or Millennial demographic are overruling the traditional workday.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the world that millennials are starting to take over the current workforce. As of writing, the overall Asian workforce is being dominated by this new wave of people at an estimated 48% — ranging from ages 15 to 34. The current Philippine workforce is closely following this trend at 44%. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics even predicts that by the 2030, the said demographic will make up 75% of the workforce.

Known for being tech-savy, creative, and independent, Millennials are one of the strongest driving force behind the arising changes in the workplace. Despite of the bad reputation and stereotypes this young generation seemed to be getting for challenging the conventional way of working, they probably have a logical reason for not wanting to chain themselves to a desk.

The Change: Shifting Away From Desk Jobs

The generation of young professionals today value autonomy and independence in the workplace, unlike their parents that valued the security of 9-5 desk jobs.

Millennials are risk takers who are not scared of switching from one job to another – a complete contrast to those coming from the older generation who held their jobs with a tight grip. According to the 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey, one in four Millennials would quit their current jobs to join a new organization or do something different – if given the choice. The said figure increases up to 44 percent when the given time frame is expanded two years. And by the end of the year 2020, two out of every three respondents hope to have moved on from their current employers. This seemingly lack of loyalty may be fueled by the wants of the employees to continuously develop their skills and to remain happy. This generation won’t give changing jobs any second thoughts if this change would give them greater opportunities.

Another study have said that 37% of Gen Y workers would rather have their pay cut if it meant more flexibility – a balance between work and play. Studies have also said that flexible working have positively affected their productivity and loyalty to their company.

Almost all employees coming from different demographic share this desire for flexibility, but none more than Millennials. This generation tend to prioritize work satisfaction and out-of-work happiness than earning the most money. Though often seen as laziness, Millennials are known to have 50-60 work weeks and this includes evenings and weekends.

With a more flexible work hours, you have a greater chance of spending time on leisure and loved ones. A person’s mental and physical health can greatly affect their work ethic and happiness. Older generations may have made it look like it is something hard to achieve but the Generation Y are living proofs that a high quality of life is possible.

The increasing demand for a more flexible work hours and office environment paved way to opportunities for a new kind of office space: Coworking Spaces – one of the latest trends in the business industry.

Coworking spaces are membership-based workplaces that offer a more comfortable work area for the freelancers and entrepreneurs of this generation. Not only will they be providing an affordable workplace with a guaranteed smooth sailing business operation, it will also give you a change of scenery. It suggests that the combination of a healthier work environment and a great work experience can become part of a company’s strategy in creating a happier atmosphere in the office that will not only help your employees improve their productivity but also benefit your business to thrive.

“Don’t chain yourself to a desk!”

The ideals that Generation Y have may be unconventional but the rest of the world should give them credit for the innovation they have brought upon. And with majority of today’s workforce coming from this demographic, are you ready for them? Talk to us on how you can catch up on the trend of flexible working hours.