Workspace Group Relaunches London Coworking Brand

Published on December 5, 2017 - By Jo Meunier (née Disney)

• London-based Workspace Group has relaunched its coworking brand, Club Workspace.

• Club Workspace now features a refreshed set of membership options that appeal to London’s growing small business market.

• Blending flexibility with affordability, the new workspace options challenge recent concerns that London’s coworking market is outpricing bootstrapping entrepreneurs.

Workspace Group, a real estate investment trust and provider of flexible office space across London, has relaunched its coworking offering — Club Workspace — in response to the changing needs of small business owners.

When it launched Club Workspace in 2011 and introduced community-focused shared spaces into its business centres, Workspace Group became an early pioneer of coworking.

Over the past six years, the rate of new startups in London has grown alongside the equally rapid development of the capital’s flexible workspace sector. However, with the threat of Brexit overhanging the city and amidst concerns that London’s small businesses are being forced out of the city due to a lack of affordable space, it’s clear that the capital’s growing market still has certain challenges to overcome.

Workspace Group is one flexible workspace operator that’s working to bring balance back into the coworking mix. And while certain coworking brands are targeting London’s affluent corporate market, Club Workspace is remaining loyal to its original target market.

So what’s new?

The main focus of Club Workspace’s relaunch is a set of revamped membership options specifically focused on small businesses, startups and freelancers — including those with tight budgets.

Amongst them, Club Workspace has launched a new Day Pass, which allows mobile workers to touch down in any Club location between 9am-5pm without committing to monthly membership options.

Or, for those spending more time in the city, the brand’s new ‘Hangout’ membership provides access to a selection of ten Club coworking spaces, five days a week, for £150 per month.

Moving up the scale, members can opt for a private desk in a shared space (£275) or unlimited coworking across any Club Workspace in London at £300 per month.

Despite London’s notorious big-ticket reputation, Club Workspace’s new membership options blend affordable flexibility with high-quality space. Asked why Club Workspace focused on this target market in particular as opposed to the deeper pockets of corporate occupiers, Lisa Carroll, Head of Club Workspace, commented:

“Community and network development is a big part of our offering at Club Workspace. We feel that by supporting people at the very start of their business journey it helps to bolster our Membership Community and sense of comradery within the larger Membership.

“By offering extended Membership options that are accessible to those on tighter budgets, and by supporting them with the facilitation of business-focused networking at a critical stage in their independent business lives, Club Workspace helps to drive an engaged, retained and committed member community. In turn, this drives buy-in across the member network.”

On average at least one Club Workspace customer per month expands into a traditional Workspace office property. Part of the Club’s rebrand includes preferential rates and reduced deposits to encourage loyalty amongst members when the time comes to upgrade into private office space.

Another new feature for Club Workspace is its intention to roll out extended opening hours and 24/7 access across its London network. Most Club Workspaces are open for 12 hours from Monday to Friday, although a number of centres offer 24-hour access, made possible by secure entry systems that allows members to tap in and tap out of their workspace at any time.

Asked why they plan to extend 24-hour opening times across its coworking portfolio, Carroll commented that, “the coworking model demands flexibility, and Club Workspace try to extend this benefit through the entire membership offering… When we consider our member community, we look to provide ‘flexibility’ as one of our core pillars.”

Furthermore, demand for flexible opening hours ties in with the dynamic requirements of startups and small business owners, which work beyond the constraints of the traditional 9-5. However, developments in mobile technology and the ability to both work and hire from almost any location means that users of flexible space frequently work across borders, as Club Workspace has discovered:

“Lots of our members, although not all, are working across different time zones and like those of us in conventional offices, others have projects that may keep them ‘in the office’ later in the day,” Carroll added. “So, we see this as a normal day-to-day requirement for our coworking community.”