Virtual offices have become a growing alternative to renting or leasing physical business space, especially among smaller businesses or businesses that are looking to expand internationally. Virtual offices aren’t just reserved for smaller businesses though — even larger companies are impressed by the amount of money they can save or sink elsewhere by using a virtual office space. If you’re looking for fully furnished office solutions or an office solution that is unique, you should consider looking at virtual offices. They’re usually in impressive buildings with excellent conference room space, secretarial services, and other onsite amenities. Workers can have a more flexible schedule and work from home, instead of wasting time on a commute, or work in a space that’s most conducive to their productivity — after all, not everyone works best in an office space. Using a virtual office allows companies to take advantage of fully furnished office solutions for meetings or administrative functions, but save a significant amount of money at the same time.
What Exactly Is a Virtual Office?
A virtual office isn’t all up in the clouds, as some might think. Instead, it’s a physical space that companies can use for business purposes that comes with a complete mailing address and communication services. No one has to be in the office 24/7 from your company and mail that’s addressed to you there can be picked up, dropped off, or forwarded onto you wherever you’re working from. Should you need the occasional conference room or impressive office to host clients in, a virtual office will make that available to you. Virtual offices will also have services such as video conferencing, voicemail, and secretarial services.
A recent study showed that some of the industries most likely to take advantage of virtual office space are financial, legal, consulting, technology, real estate, healthcare, marketing and advertising, entertainment, and retail.
How Does a Virtual Office Help Both the Employer and the Employee?
One of the best benefits for employees about using a virtual office space is that they can telecommute and work from home, instead of having to take a long commute. If they drive, the wear and tear on their vehicles is significantly reduced and they can save money on the cost of commuting using public transportation. For employers, Sun Microsystems found that they actually gain more working time when employees telecommute; a recent study showed that telecommuting employees use 60% of the time they would have used to telecommute actually working instead. Being able to telecommute may also make a job seem more attractive to potential employees and the American Management Association reports that businesses that have started letting their employees telecommute have seen an over 60% decrease in unplanned absences.
What Are Some of the Benefits of a Virtual Office?
Other than not having to commute, it can save the employers a huge amount of money. Imagine having fully furnished office solutions at your disposal — you have a beautiful office space that’s already furnished for you that you can use whenever you need. You don’t need to pay monthly rent — usually just a fee — but you can have on-demand use of the space. Access to conference rooms or offices that can be used for more private meetings are available, as well as equipment and technology like printers, conference phones, copiers, scanners, and Internet.
If you’re a smaller company (or even a larger one that has expanded to an overseas office), a virtual office will also give you access to a mailing address, which can help you seem more legit. it will give your consumers and business partners another way to reach you than just over the Internet and phone and a unified physical location to put on business cards, letterhead, envelopes, and more. Secretarial service may also be provided — so if someone calls the number provided, someone will forward or answer calls as necessary, giving your business the image of a much larger or more successful one than it perhaps is at that point in time.
Consider fully furnished office solutions like virtual office space — it could be a great asset to your company!
