Are you waiting to move into a new building or refurbish your existing office? Perhaps you just need some additional space for a short amount of time? If so, a temporary office could help to keep your business up and running at full capacity. We’ve put together this quick guide to the basics of temporary offices, from their use, who can benefit from using a temporary office, and what you’re likely to find when you rent for this purpose.
What is a temporary office?
Let’s start with the basics. Temporary office space is typically rented or leased with flexible contracts and is suitable for a whole host of business sizes and types. It’s most commonly used for instances of Disaster Recovery, where existing offices need to be abandoned, or when a company needs overflow or swing space while their own workspace is being refurbished. Some startups even use them while transferring from a home enterprise to an SME; these ready-to-go offices really have their fair share of functions.
As we mentioned, these offices are set up and prepared for immediate occupancy, an attractive prospect in urgent circumstances. The office providers can also offer you facilities and services that you may not able to afford otherwise: which can be a big worry off your mind if you’ve just experienced a disaster or other setback to your operations.
What options are available when it comes to renting temporary offices?
Of course, when choosing a temporary office space, you’ll need to remember that it might not be able to satisfy all your business requirements. But as it’s only a short-term solution, you can make up for any sacrifices on amenities by saving on overhead costs. There are plenty of different options available, including:
- A fully serviced office: some contracts allow for immediate occupancy and operate on a very short-term basis, ideal for temporary workspace
- A shared office: these are empty spaces within another company’s building: this can be useful if you need to move all your furniture and facilities
- Co-working spaces: commonly used for startups making the transition from home-working, these usually work on a per-desk basis for a low cost
What can I expect from a short-term office lease?
If you do need to opt for a short-term solution, serviced offices tend to be the number one choice as they’re fully equipped with fixtures, furniture and IT equipment including broadband and telephone lines. In addition, they can sometimes offer support staff, communal areas, onsite security and call handling services.
It’s down to you to assess which amenities are essential to your business structure and find a suitable office space that provides as many of them as possible. For example, it might be important to have your own breakout room or reception area, but this is not always available in a serviced office.
Another benefit of temporary office space is the flexible agreements and contracts available. Most temporary office providers will give you an option to sign a three month deal allowing you to be flexible. There is also a high chance that the management company will have enough experience to cater to your specific needs, whatever situation you may throw at them.
There are some downsides to temporary office space though, as you won’t have a huge amount of control or choice. This includes how your workspace looks or is decorated and the people you share the building with. Broadband speeds are flexible in most buildings you will come across, however it might mean you have to pay more.
However, if your business is flexible and you are willing to adapt, renting temporary office space could be the ideal solution to a tricky situation.
Situations where temporary offices have been useful
We’ve dealt with plenty of companies of all sizes and situations, and we’re used to dealing with specific requests in tricky circumstances. Here’s some of the cases we’ve helped companies out with:
Swing Space for Rockwool
Rockwool is the UK’s leading supplier of mineral wool insulation products and solutions for the construction market. They decided to relocate some of their business from South Wales to London; however, the building chosen was not suitable for occupation immediately so they had to look into a short term “Swing Space” solution.
Here’s what they had to say:
“Within 24 hours they [Easy Offices] had clearly established our requirement for office space as close to our new home as possible… we viewed the properties the next working day and within 24 hours of that we had agreed terms.”
A temporary base for Knight Frank
Knight Frank LLP are a global privately owned property business dealing with all aspects of property both commercial and residential. While their new office in Hertfordshire was being prepared, the firm needed a temporary base of operations as close by as possible.
Here’s what they had to say:
“Easy Offices provided office space options very quickly and a very simple process with good communication throughout.”
Disaster recovery for MedicAlert
MedicAlert is the only non-profit making registered charity providing a life-saving identification system for individuals with hidden medical conditions and allergies. Due to botched maintenance work near their King’s Cross office, the company’s office flooded, leaving them without suitable work space. With time being of the essence, we had to pull together a list of temporary offices very quickly.
Here’s what they had to say:
“Easy Offices kept in contact with us throughout each working day, quickly rearranging appointments and providing an excellent liaison with the companies we were dealing with. It was an extremely useful and time-saving service…without [them] moving office could have been a very long and arduous task.”
Nice blog. Temporary office are best for let. It helps in disaster and any other problem also. Thanks for this information and blog.