While functioning out of virtual offices are a growing trend among businesses, a lot of them continue to show inertial behaviour when it comes to accepting the novel operating approach. This is partly due to multiple misconceptions that managers carry about the concept of virtual offices. Here we dispel some such common misconceptions.
1. Â Virtual Offices hurt Employee Productivity
Some business owners believe that without constant supervision, their workers would slack off. However, in fact, the opposite of this has been found to be true. If employees are motivated enough, they prefer to work autonomously. And because remote work offers such autonomy, it isn’t surprising that multiple studies have concluded that workers who are offered such freedom to work in comfortable surroundings actually perform better because of flexibility of timing and lesser stress. In fact, in a regular office employees face a lot of distractions such as non-work related conversations with co-workers which actually reduce productivity.
2. Â Virtual Offices cannot offer a professional environment
In fact, virtual offices allow you the freedom to choose every office amenity such as conference rooms, meeting rooms, work desks, receptionist support, technical support, internet, admin support, and so on that is required for getting the work done. You get a choice to choose the amenities depending on the requirements and pay only for those.
3. Â Virtual Offices are unaffordable
Nothing can be further from the truth. In fact, by allowing businesses to cut down on overheads and expensive lease rentals as well as spending on office equipment, virtual offices offer an economical deal. Some virtual office providers also offer receptionist and admin support, which means even further cost-savings. Thus, adopting the virtual office concept can end up increasing profitability.
4. Â You cannot rely on Virtual Offices
Managers may feel that it would be difficult to address situations such as a temporary increase in seating capacity in case a group meeting needs to be held at the office location. However, almost every virtual office provider offers the option of short-term booking of office space to handle such situations. In fact, such an option allows for businesses to cut down on leasing overtly large office spaces which would result in further cost-savings.
5. Â There are security risks in virtual offices
One area of concern that managers have is that employees may end up sharing confidential company information or trade secrets out with others while working in a virtual office setting. And that could be true to a certain extent. However, employees could always be trained a bit more extensively on best practices for information integrity. Also, remember that if an employee wilfully wishes to share confidential information outside the company, they can do it even while working from a regular office.
6. Â Virtual Offices can only benefit start-ups and small businesses
Of course, virtual offices are a boon for small businesses. However, that is not to say that larger organizations cannot benefit from setting up virtual offices. For example, while expanding into new markets and creating a regional team, it may make sense to start with a smaller temporary space and build the team and later go on to expand the office size if needed.
7. Â Virtual Offices work only for Remote Working Jobs
Of course, for remote working, virtual office spaces definitely are a great asset. However, even for customer-facing job roles, remote offices can be beneficial. For example, for B2B businesses, it may make sense to seat a single-member client relationship manager in a virtual office from where he or she could operate by meeting with regional clients in the virtual office space.
8. Â Virtual Offices cannot be comparable to Real Offices
Of course, if you are talking about a sprawling physical brick-and-mortar office housing a 200-strong staff within itself, then a virtual office cannot be comparable. But that does not mean it does not offer the experience of a real office. A virtual office offers the same set of amenities as a real office, with some added advantages such as the modularity of office space which means you can book the right kind of spaces (desks, conference rooms, small office rooms, and so on).
9. Â Reliable virtual offices are very rare
Contrary to the above belief that some traditional managers hold, virtual offices are witnessing a rapid growth in popularity. In particular, the preference of working from a virtual office space is growing among millennials because they come with a unique set of demands such as flexibility of location and work schedules.
10. Â Virtual Offices create a poor Business image
One may argue that this could hold true if one has just launched a new business and is yet to establish a brand name. But then once you acquire clients, you can quickly compensate it through delivering quality service. For established businesses, it really does not have much of an impact. In fact, for an established business, delivering good customer experiences through operating out of virtual offices could further strengthen the brand name and also yield the other benefits listed above.
11. Â Virtual Office rental offerings are all similar
This is one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding virtual offices which traditional-minded business owners carry. Contrary to the offerings being similar, virtual office offerings in fact offer a wide variety of services in customizable packages. You may choose depending on your requirement facilities such as private addresses with mailboxes, shared work-spaces, official landline number with call diverting facility, executive office suites, receptionists, well-trained work assistants, and so on.
12. Â Virtual Offices hamper communication between co-workers
This could be true to some extent but it depends more on how your organization is set up rather than the virtual office concept. In a badly run organization, employees under the same roof too could lack effective collaboration due to absence of team chemistry. However, if a team is smartly managed, operating remotely out of virtual offices which offer all the necessary online collaboration tools will never pose a hindrance to communication between co-workers.
13. Â Teleworking is an excuse for employees to Stay at Home
This misconception arises out of the belief that teleworkers always work from home. A lot of them in fact work from remote locations such as cafes or libraries. They just prefer to not work in a formal office environment with too many people around. A virtual office could be a space which offers such employees the perfect professional environment to maximize their productivity.
14. Â It is difficult to secure a Virtual Office package
On the contrary, as opposed to leasing a traditional office space which involves a monumental effort in planning, shifting, getting the place done as per requirement, and so on, renting a virtual office space is far easier. All you have to do is to list down specific requirements that you would need the virtual space to meet, and then you can go about looking for a virtual office which meets those requirements. Also, as seen above, you can customize the virtual office facilities as per your need and pay only for the services that you use.
Surely after seeing the amount of benefits that a virtual office can bring as opposed to its perceived short-comings, a lot more business owners would want to experiment with the concept to attempt and reap the benefits that it can deliver.