The benefits of sharing office space are plenty. For one, it reduces the cost to lease space in some of the more pristine areas in Australia’s more well-known cities. Finally, shared spaced offers businesses a bevvy of opportunities to grow their business in a nurturing environment and to learn about the various industries that make up the space. Whether using a virtual office, a coworking space, or another serviced office alternative, the shared office sets the foundation for engaging with others who work in the environment.

Shared offices, while being a place to work, can be a place that encourages the kind of interaction that creates other business opportunities, namely collaboration. Primarily because of the way many offices are organised, professionals between working can break in any of the areas designated as a lounge. Not only do these lounges offer up opportunities for social engagement, but your actual workspace can be a place to network.

Let’s take a closer look at how your shared office space can be a platform for getting to know your neighbour.

Network To Collaborate

While working in the shared office, make your conversations purposeful. Not that you have to bug your colleagues, but try to learn about the people in your area for future collaboration. The best quality about shared space is that it presents you with so many opportunities to learn about various industries, and in many cases, can be a place where you can easily get your hands on the types of resources your business might need.

Ultimately, though, you want to use the opportunity to gab at the hot desk to build teams around projects. Not that you talk to your colleagues with an agenda in mind, but it does not hurt to use your work time to create opportunities for activity-based projects within the community. Your purposeful networking can result in the types of projects that create business opportunities.

Use The Hot Desk To Your Advantage

Of the many places to create networking opportunities, the hot desk is probably one of the best places to begin these conversations. As a place to work, professionals and businesses, alike, might find this area is conducive to working in teams and collaborating on different projects. If anything, you can at minimum meet people from diverse industries. Australia’s convivial work atmosphere almost makes it easy for professionals to get to know one another. One shared office space – Servcorp, for example, has re-invented office space so the hot desk is more than a workspace. It is a comfortable place to build relationships as well.

Use Social Media 

Networking in the space is great, but the only problem is you do not have the chance to meet and engage with everyone in the shared space, especially if the office is open 24/7. With conflicting schedules, you might find you do not have the chance to engage many people that can be resources to you. The great thing, though, is the online platform presents businesses with the chance to engage their community regardless of their schedule.

Social media presents professionals with the online platform to engage anyone in the shared office. If your office does not have one, consider spearheading the effort to create a page where people from your office can socialise when convenient for them. This page can be a marketplace where professionals can connect, or it can be a place to socialise.

Social media allows you a chance to get to know and understand those around you, without impacting the workflow of your shared office space. As much as they are designed for work, shared offices are designed for collaboration and networking. Therefore, social media’s ability to bring people together is a tool that should not go underutilised by those looking to improve their network.

Getting Know Your Neighbour

The office, just by virtue of work, is a place where people naturally socialise. However, shared space presents professionals with ample opportunity to get to know their workmates simply because an office with few or no barriers is an invitation to social interaction. For your business, it can be the platform for creating long-term or short-term partnerships.