The predominant form of income for a Coworking space is its desk rentals, whether that is by the hour, day or month. Let’s take a look at Hot Desk vs. Dedicated Desk memberships and why should you offer both options.
Hot Desk Benefits
Hot desk is basically a pay-as-you-go, sit-where-there’s-an-opening, membership. It’s ideal for freelancers, remote workers and startups. All you have to do is bring your laptop, select an open seat and get to work.
You can offer membership discounts for longer term commitments, but typically hot desk rentals are made for maximum flexibility by the hour or day. Monthly rentals typically are for those who know they’ll be in and out on a consistent basis.
So what are some of the benefits to you for providing hot desk options for members? Naturally, flexibility is key to many people looking into joining a Coworking space. As we spoke about with the plan length, they can also be full time or part time for those who know they wont spend entire days in the office.
Also one of the keys is that you can sell more memberships per individual desk. Since they are unassigned, on a first come basis, this can be a benefit to you and provide additional income.
Yes, if you have a great deal of hot desk members in your space, it could be harder to build a sense of community. We know how valuable that is to members in a shared space. When people continuously come in and out and there’s no continuity, it could be harder to create connections.
It also could make it difficult to forecast month to month income when heavily relying on hot desk members.
But overall, hotdesking is a very popular way to accommodate a huge portion of the Coworking crowd and it ensures many of the available seats in your space are filled consistently.
Dedicated Desk Benefits
Dedicated desk basically ensures the member that a specific desk is theirs for as long as they book their membership. You can include better additional benefits than for hot desking, such as bigger desk space or a bigger monitor. Pricing for meeting room access can also be offered at a deeper discount.
Another benefit of having a high amount of dedicated desks is that you can charge a higher amount per desk. In opposite fashion of hot desking, members using dedicated desks tend to be the pillars of your community. They are consistently interacting with eachother, sharing ideas, and participating in all the events hosted at your space.
Although initially a dedicated desk may be a tougher sell (more commitment), its advantages outweigh its drawbacks. If you do have members with 24/7 access to dedicated desks, its also important to upgrade your security system.
Fill All Needs
At the end of the day, your space will become more attractive to a wider prospective base if you offer a good mix of hot desks and dedicated desks. The dedicated desk members will be anchors of your community, while the hot desking group will infuse their fresh ideas and commentary whenever they drop in.
You should set revenue goals on a monthly basis and track how many of the desks in your shared space are being used for each membership type. This will help you in figuring out how many desks to reserve for each purpose in the upcoming months.
Spot trends like you would with any other aspect of your business. If your members are inclined to need conference room space, storage space, or even bigger desks, make it happen for the dedicated desk members.
Or vice versa. If you notice a great deal of members are just stopping by for quick work, and they like the coffee shop style comfort level, make that happen for the hot desk members.
Desk space is flexible. You can convert as much as you want to allot to one group or the other.
Either way, Yardi Kube can be the platform of choice for all types of members in your Coworking space. With the necessary software, hardware and tools for growing your space, you’ll benefit from all our features. Click for more information below.