How do co-working spaces play a crucial role in remote work?

Introduction

Pushpak Mundre

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Be remote podcast for today’s episode we have with us, Nicole. Nicole is the co-founder and chief people officer at Deskpass, and Also, she’s the co-founder at Second Shift Chicago. I’m super excited to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for doing this.

 

Nicole 

Thank you. Thanks for having me. Fabulous chat.

 

Pushpak Mundre  

So, uh, tell us more about yourself, and how did you start at desk pass? And also like, second shift Chicago?

 

How did Nicole start Deskpass, and second Shift Chicago?

 

Nicole 

A great question. So I think the biggest thing is that I grew up in a multicultural home. And so I always knew that there was a beauty and having people from all different backgrounds coming together that you know, people have different cultures and backgrounds and experiences, when brought together lead to better conversations and better understanding of the world and just just a richer experience overall. And so that was always me all throughout my life. My background and businesses from business operations, marketing, advertising, you know, events, I was always a person bringing people together. And so fast forward to about eight years ago, I walked into a co working space, and I fell in love, I noticed the environment, I noticed that there was people, there’s people in suits over there, there was your startup founders over here, you know, your nonprofit over here. And everybody was working out of the same environment. And so I immediately asked What is this place, and when I found out about the concept of co working, I fell in love, and I fell in love because one it combined my personal and my professional interest. You know, personally having all these different people and the community aspect. As you know, with co working there’s such a big community aspect. And one of the biggest benefits of co working is the ability to meet other people of different industries and backgrounds. Like we wouldn’t normally crossed paths if you were in just one company office all day long, or only hanging out with people in your industry. So that’s my my background with co working I then research co working and opened my first co working space in Chicago, about nine months later, I opened a second look, the first location was called the shift, the second one was called second shift. And so that was my background and co working I ran my own co working spaces for years. And then my second location, I had a partner and great community there. And of all the while we were also building deskpass, which is a network of co working spaces around the globe that now provides companies and their remote employees access to desks, meeting rooms and offices around the world. We’re helping hundreds of companies and 1000s of their employees navigate the return to work or this new hybrid work. Yeah, future because we are their solution. So companies work with us, as a to provide us as a benefit to their employees and their employees have different levels of stipends that they can use to book desks, meeting rooms and offices in their city close to their home, or when they traveled so they can meet with their colleagues or with their clients and, and just always have access to professional spaces.

 

Pushpak Mundre 

Yeah, I think the concept of co working is like really amazing, because I know like, I think it’s gonna be a huge industry, even after the pandemic, because like a lot of companies, they are already remote. And some of the companies are happy. Yeah. So they don’t want to, you know, like some of the companies, most of the companies, I think they don’t want to keep the office space. So they’re just gonna booked some slots, like, you know, the seats and employees can come over there. And suppose I’m in San Francisco, and like, my company is in New York. So for example, so I can still go to any co working space in San Francisco, for example, and meet people from other companies. And so I think that is really exciting about co working space. So it kind of helps remote to, you know, to keep remote work and have the work life, I guess it would be very important.

 

Nicole 

I completely agree. And, you know, we see, there’s no one size fits all for companies either. You know, we see some companies that have completely got rid of their company office, and they now give that fast to all of their employees, and they let employees choose what type of workspace they want. We also see other companies who have scaled down, they still have their company office, but maybe they reduce their footprint. And they went from, you know, a very larger office to a smaller office. And now they have they give us as a benefit to employ so that they have almost like satellite offices close to their home. And then we also see companies who have not changed their company office whatsoever. But they realize that their employees want to stay working remote. And so they say look, you can stay working remote 1234 days a week, five days a week. But if you do want access to a workspace because we believe it gives increases productivity increases employee engagement and happiness. Here is your employee benefit Now similar to companies giving the benefit of a gym or travel expense and things like that. They now say, look, not everybody wants to be working from home five days a week. So here’s how you can get out of your Yeah, you know, take a shower, put on a nice outfit and and go be around other people.

 

Pushpak Mundre 

This is gonna be a game changer. Yeah, seems like. So, like Woman’s Day is almost here. So let’s talk about like, advantages of like, you know, working remotely as a woman, like having a flexible work life balance. So what are the important like, why it is important to work remotely? Like, what are the advantages?

 

Advantages of working remotely  for a woman

 

Nicole

Yeah, we still live in a world where traditionally family care responsibilities fall largely on the woman and so pre pandemic, a lot of women when they had young children at home, they had to pick between their career and, and being a mother. And so they would lose out on you know, maybe staying at home for a few months or years, and then having a hard time returning the workplace. And the one one of the silver linings of this, you know, horrible thing we’ve gone through is that it allowed everybody to stay working remote. And women especially has been able to juggle those family responsibilities a lot easier. Because, one, when you’re working remote, you don’t have to have that 30 minute one hour commute in the morning and evening. So you have more time to spend with your family. A lot of women have told me that during that time, that that that having that amount of time allowed them to actually work during the times that their child is sleeping, or doing activities. So they were actually able to retain their job. Also the flexibility. So now if working remote and companies working in an asynchronous communication, where it’s not like they have to immediately reply, women have told me that they now can wake up early while the children are sleeping, get a few hours of work in, take care of the children during the day, and then in the evenings, or in the late afternoon, when maybe their partner comes home or when they have family that can come over and help, they can also work so they have now read out their. Their schedule allows them to retain their job. And then third, what I think is really interesting is it’s just changed the culture, it has like kind of lifted the veil on what it’s like to have children at home, I’m very blessed. I have three co founders, two of which all three are men, two of them have young children at home, one has three one has to. And what I love is that it actually we’re expecting a child, but we don’t have any children. Yeah. And for the past few years, especially during the pandemic, I have witnessed what it’s like for my partners to have their children come in crying, their wives come and say I need you right now please, like, you know, I have a meeting and switch. And what’s great is that now men are also bearing those responsibilities. And it has, you know, working from home when you’re in someone’s house, and it is already very personal. And when you start to see their children and their pets, and what their home looks like it really it removes that barrier. And I think that has changed the dynamic amongst employees where you’re now seeing your counterparts and their children. And it allows you to be more real and a lot more understanding my partner’s when they had young, you know, they had young children before, before we’re going to have young children and you know it, I know that in a few months when we have a child, I’m going to be in that same boat. And I realized like thank goodness that for remote work and flexibility where they’re going to be just as understanding when I’m in that position. So I think I think that is something that is really interesting. And then there’s there’s so many other things about women in co working like women being able to find workspaces where they feel comfortable, you know, there’s a lot of workspaces where women go to because they know it’ll be more other women then perhaps a workspace full of men where they can actually just kind of get to work and not feel uncomfortable. And so I think that in itself, like what it always comes down to is the freedom to choose when people have 50 workspaces near their home that they can choose from. They tend to the workspaces that they either feel comfortable in because it’s people who look and act and you know, like them, or there’s a specific niche that they are fulfilling, like perhaps it’s a creative workspace, a tech focus workspace, a green energy workspace. And so people want the flexibility to find a place where they feel most comfortable and with women. That’s very important as well as we know that in some environments, they can be preyed upon fathered. Yeah.

 

Pushpak Mundre 

So on this path, we can basically find a perfect quality space for us, right?

 

How does deskpass help in finding a co-working space?

 

Nicole   

Yeah, yeah, there’s plenty of filters you can even search what I love is I mean, we can search by you can search by social impact, you can search by workspaces that are owned by women or People of Color indigenous people, you can look for workspaces based on mood. So you can say, today is the day that I have a lot of heads down work, I want to find a quiet space, and then maybe on another day, you know, today today, I have a lot of emails, but I don’t really need to focus. So I’m just gonna go to a space that’s lively. And then we also have locked spaces. So maybe on the days that you want to invite your clients and really impress them, you can look for a lock space and make sure that you know that everything is premium.

 

Pushpak Mundre  

Awesome. This is interesting. Cool. So let’s talk about remote onboarding, as well, as Joe mentioned, like about that. So what exactly remote onboarding, remote onboarding is, and why it is very important?

 

What is remote onboarding and why is it important?

 

Nicole  

Oh, I think what’s most important is that it sets the tone for a new employee. And I mean, everybody needs to be on boarded into the company and learn the ropes of how the company operates. And I always joke that most people these days, when you say, think about it, like a time where you were on boarded to a company, and it was not a good experience, and everybody seems to have experience with either, like put in a back room to video with nobody around or they were sent home with this big manual. And to read 30 pages, and like there was no engagement and, and so remote onboarding doesn’t have to be like that, or just new employee onboarding in general. And I think it’s important, like I said, because it sets the tone. But it also describes your company culture right away. So I think remote onboarding also starts before you’re even hired. So remote onboarding, should extend to the job description, in the job description. Your potential employees should already understand what type of company culture you have, what your benefits are, you know, what the expectations are, what the communication channels are, so that there’s no surprises so that once they get hired, they’re not like, oh, I had no idea. So I think that’s, that’s always my tip. You know, remote onboarding extends to the hiring process. But in terms of actual onboarding, we built out a whole self guided onboarding process in notion that we think is really fun, where it’s divided into two different days. And when a new employee signs up, or starts with us, the very first day will actually a week before we send them an email, letting them know how their week of training is going to go so that they understand that the first two days, they’ll be focused on this, and then they’ll be with their manager, and then they’ll meet with their teammates. So that, you know, the Friday before they start, they are going into the weekend, knowing what they’re going to have on Monday, there’s no anxiety, they can relax and enjoy. And I think that’s really important, too, is is honoring them as a human and saying, you know, even though you start on Monday, here’s what to expect. Also, have a great weekend, enjoy. We’ll see you Monday, we even do things like on Monday, we try to start a little later. So we don’t say okay, 8am or 9am, or like, you know, have a coffee, go for a walk, start at 10am or 11am time, you know, how often do you get our two in the morning completely yourself. So we try to get as nice to say, you know, take some time for yourself. And then that morning we meet, it’s me as the chief people officer, and then their manager, and then them. So the three of us meet on a call and just kind of say, hey, great to see you. Welcome to the team. We give them an overview of that day’s onboarding. And then they get right into it. So they have a self guided onboarding process where they go through our process, and they read each section. And the what I’m really proud of is the very first section has nothing to do about us the first hour to two hours of their time, it’s all about them. So we gift them with the Gallup Strengths Finder test where they can learn their top five strengths. And they don’t have to share their results with us. It’s just our gift to them. And that first day, we asked them questions about how they work. You know, what do they feel the most supported at work? What are some things that they didn’t enjoy in their previous work relationships, and setups? What are some things that they like in a manager? And you know, so that we know that right away. And so the first two hours are spent on learning all about them. After that we go into a little bit about the company. But you know, there’s so many studies that have shown when people are honored for who they are first versus just spewing company information. They immediately feel more aligned with the team and with the brand. And I just think that’s the right thing to do. as well. It is oh snap first day. Yeah. We’re humans, right.

 

Pushpak Mundre 

Yeah, it’s very important. But I think a lot of companies don’t do this. Because what you have just said now, it’s like, it could make a lot of difference. Like whenever someone is joining like half of the time I think people are clueless, like what, what am I going to do now what I’m going to do like next week, but if companies if companies start adopting to what you just said like there will be a huge, huge difference. A lot of things. Yeah, people need to know more human like people would like. Yeah. Like they will feel like, comfortable. They would feel like home basically.

 

Nicole 

Exactly. And yeah, everything you said, I agree. And second, and what’s interesting is now, like, with so many employees being remote, they’re starting at a new company, but they’re completely alone. And you know, at least when you would go into an office and start as a new role, you would see other people, you know, you’d have a little bit more connection. But I mean, imagine sitting on your computer getting started a new company, and it’s like, all you’re learning is like this very boring stuff. And you’re by yourself like it could be, it’d be isolating, and I want them to feel excited on their first day. And, you know, we’ve been completely remote since the day that we started the company. And so it’s we’re very intentional about making sure that our remote employees actually feel connected to the team. So that first day is a lot about that. And then of course, at the end of the first day, we have a check in again, make sure they feel comfortable. Make sure that the tools that they’re using are understandable. We also asked them to take notes all throughout the way so that way they want if they have questions, they can check with me at the end of the day, so that way, during the middle of the day, they know. Okay, I have a question, but I’ll save it. And then I’ll get my question answered at the end of the day. What else I guess?

 

Pushpak Mundre   

Like suppose maybe, right now, maybe you’re the smaller organization. So you can later talk to this kind of people. But what what like, if there are a lot of lots of employees, and if you want to scale this kind of organization, so can like how can we do this? Like, you know, Joe’s, like this kind of treatment to everyone? Is it possible? Like? What do you think?

 

How to scale large organizations?

 

Nicole 

Yeah, I mean, our, our, our onboarding is self guided. So in notion, we have our different stacks that every day, you know, they go through one by one. And I mean, we put everybody through it. So I mean, you could put 30 people through and I think, exactly,

 

Pushpak Mundre  

yeah, that’s the key.

 

Nicole  

Yeah, and it’s different than then, you know, as we get into later parts of onboarding, it’s customized based on, you know, the department that you’re in, and things like that. But you know, they’re already set up with Slack. They’ve already met me, they’ve already met their manager on that first day. And they know that if they have any issues whatsoever, they have already two people that they can ping immediately in Slack. They also know that at the end of the day, they’re going to have a check in with us, they’re going to have on the next morning so that they know that like, Okay, if something goes wrong, don’t worry, like, you’ll have a checkpoint and access to someone that can help.

 

Pushpak Mundre 

So are these like engagement techniques and engagement tactics? Like how do you engage with the employees like if you’re having like a further asynchronous organization? So how do you engage? Like, is it from slack? Or like, do you get on a call as well,

 

How to engage with the employees in an asynchronous organization?

 

Nicole

we’re always evolving our practices. Because we do have employees around the world from Portland, Oregon, on the west coast of the US to Sydney, Australia. So one, I mean, already the time zones, you have to take into consideration about that. Right now we do a monthly townhall once a month where all employees are invited. And we actually found a sweet spot where our employee in Sydney, Australia, he’s an early bird. So we have it at three o’clock Eastern on Thursdays, and it works for him in Australia. And it works for everybody else, from Europe to USA to Latin America. And of course, one day, that might not be the case. So we might have to record it and you know, switch off our times or something like that. But I think the biggest thing is to always, it seems simple, but it’s always to be conscious of everybody in the organization, where they’re located, what time zones they’re on, and to check in with them. So when we set up this time, we checked in with the employee in Barcelona, and also in Australia, and also in, you know, West Coast and said, Hey, we’re thinking of doing this time. So instead of like a top down approach is always making sure I learned that from managing my co working spaces that when decisions are made, even though yes, it makes sense for leadership to make those decisions. It always is helpful to include your community. So this was a big tenet of co working space management. Like, for example, when I was running my co working spaces before I bought anything in the space, whether it was a new couch, or just a different type of coffee, I asked our members and what’s great is they all said, I like the US, you know, here’s our preference, but ultimately, you know, it’s up to you. But thank you so much for asking, and I use the same premise with our company. So I think that’s a big thing is just always making sure that you’re surveying and including people in decision because what what happens is once they see that decision gets implemented, they’re like, Oh, I helped with that, you know, I or they asked me about that. So I think that in itself is a big way to drive cohesion amongst remote employees in terms of communication We do use Slack, we use Slack for our communication. You know, we use notion and a few other things. But slack is our communication. And in terms of like you said asynchronous communication, we have an employee handbook with remote work policies and communication best practices. And when employees are, first start, we explain to them like people have, you know, everybody is in different places around the world, we understand that this is a flexible workspace, you know, there’s some times where in the middle of the day you have to go to the doctor or something like that. What we ask is that when you start with us, your manager and your teammates know, your working hours, so maybe your working hours are nine to five, maybe they are at six. And it’s just a general timeframe where we can expect that you’re online, understandably, you know, once in a while, you might have to go to the dentist. And in those cases, you block that time out on your calendar, and if you aren’t, and that way, we know that you’re not available. And if you are gone for longer periods of time, to let us know. So if you’re gonna be gone all day Friday, just give us a ping, you know, no one’s watching you, or keeping notes of how often you’re gone. It’s just more of a courtesy, you know, and utilizing things in Slack like your status. Using integrations, like I integrated, I chose to integrate by Google Calendar with slack so that if somebody goes to message me on Slack, and I’m in a scheduled meeting, they’ll see that I’m in a meeting, they can still, of course, send me a message, but they know right away, okay, she’s in a meeting. So if she’s not getting back to me, you know, that’s probably why but we don’t have expectations of immediate response in Slack. What we do say is, if you do need an immediate response, let’s say it’s an emergency, to always let people know where they can find you directly. So for example, for most of us, it’s, look, if I don’t race back to like, if this is an emergency, and you need an answer, immediately call me on my cell phone Exactly. or text me. And if you message me on Slack, and I kind of understood, like, if I don’t get back to you within like an hour or two, you know, I’m obviously tied up. But if you need it sooner than later, just say, Hey, I actually need this sooner, like, you know, an ETA or you know, when we can get this rolled out. And I think being very clear to like in Slack, you know, we have guidelines, like instead of, you know, try to write in very clear, concise statements versus, you know, paragraphs that are hard to follow, and things like that. And if you are asking a request of someone, I always tend I, especially with our development team, who has a million tasks on their plate, I’m always like, this is not urgent, this is medium level, you know, this is something that I noticed, but you know, let’s just put on the request board. So I like to be very clear and direct so that people when they get a message for me, they’re not like, oh, no, I have to, you know, scramble, because nobody wants to scramble, if they find out that they scrambled, and then they don’t need it done for a week later. So I try to be courteous of that.

 

Pushpak Mundre

So let’s talk about productivity as when they were working remotely. So when it comes to asynchronous communication, or like, when you have a flexible work policy, like you don’t have to stick to the schedule, right. So and sometimes, then like, sometimes people may look like you may look last unit, right? Like, because you don’t have any, like deadlines. Suppose. So how do we like make sure that everything is getting done? Like how to how should we create a schedule and things like that, too? You know, what, if effectively,

 

How to ensure productivity while working remotely?

 

Nicole

I think having a system for your company that works best for everyone that everybody is understandable, like, how goals are set and what the expectations are. So as a company, we follow the traction EOS model, it’s the entrepreneur operating system, model. And every quarter, we get together as a leadership team, and we set the company goals. So every quarter the leadership team meets and says, What is the most pressing issues of the company? And what do we need to achieve this, this quarter, to push the company forward. So those become the company goes, then each department a week after we have our leadership meeting, each department meets and sets the department goals for the quarter. And they say, based on the company goals that we know are most important. Well, what are our goals based on those? And then what’s the individual goals for each person. So what’s nice about that is that it started by the company vision and where we need to all go together so as a team, and then each individual department identifies the goals. And then the best thing is that every quarter each person knows what their goals are. And it’s very clear and define. And then every week, we have a meeting as departments where that we go through each goal, we say if it’s on track, off track, and if it’s off track, we talk as a department and help each other you know, hey, I know you know, this is off track. What can we do to help? Is it off track because we’re not allocating enough resources? Is it off track because you have too many projects on your plate? What is the issue and then we work together to alleviate that so that the person can be more productive? So the reason I bring up the model is that productivity He is self managed, I believe in a lot of ways. Most people are very good at managing their time, as long as they know what they have to get done. You know, like, a lot of people know, like, hey, at the end of this week, if I have to get this done, and there’s some people who will wait until Thursday, to get it all done by Friday, and if that works for them, and they’re not stressed out, at the end of the day, if they’re completing their goals, and it’s not blocking anybody else, it works, right. So what I like about this model is that allows everybody to do their own productivity. And because of the weekly check ins, there’s no surprise at the end of the quarter that somebody has performed their goals, and it also allows us to help each other out. Because sometimes, you know, I’m, I’m an overachiever. I’m one of those people who it’s like, if something if we need to get something done, like, I’ll roll up my sleeves, and I’ll get it done. And you know, it’s affecting my schedule, and my, like, you know, ability when other people are happy to help. So yeah, it allows people to say, Okay, you have too much on your plate, because this company goal is really reliant on your work. So let’s all work together. And with that, with the productivity, like per person, yeah, I just really think in a remote organization, it’s important to have weekly check ins at the minimum. And those check ins don’t have to be like, cheesy where a man you know, it’s not a micromanagement thing, either, where a manager is like, what are you doing today? It’s, it’s just more about like, how are you feeling? What’s on your plate this week? Yeah. And here’s what your teammates are working on, here’s what the company is working on? And how can we help you achieve your goals?

 

Pushpak Mundre  

Yeah. Make sense? So you know, as you work with, like, hundreds of companies across the globe, and like, as when they have like, 1000s of remote employees as well. So what are you seeing with the companies like now like, how they’re navigating hybrid work? And, like, right now, like, it seems like for most pandemic is ended, like, but nobody is sure about that. Maybe? Right now, nothing is, you know, we can’t fish, we are not sure. So maybe anything could happen. So but I think some companies are like trying to bring back the employees and some are someone to stick to hybrid, some people wants to go back to Office, some people want to stay remote. So how do we solve this all the mess like what is going on and the industry.

 

What do you think about the companies that are navigating hybrid work?

 

Nicole 

So similar to how we had an agricultural revolution, and industrial revolution, this is the work revolution and 1015, maybe even just five years from now, we will look back and see that there was a significant shift in human behavior in regards to how we work because of the pandemic because everybody had to go remote. And because people received remote work and in different ways, like, what we do know, there’s no perfect formula for companies, right? Some companies want to go back to the office five days a week, some companies want to be 100%, remote, and everything in between. And there is no perfect formula. What we do know though, is employees now have had the most flexibility and autonomy than they’ve ever had. And productivity did not suffer overall, across all like multiple industries, productivity did not you know, things didn’t go down in flames, people didn’t stop working and just slept all day. Sure, there’s, I’m sure we all know somebody who may be doing remote work is not doing as much as they should. But for the majority of people, they actually took it upon themselves, they manage their schedule, they’re feeling better, because they have an hour themselves in the morning in the evening, because they don’t have to commute. So overall, remote work has been a success. And with that, now, companies are realizing employees are not going to go back to the way it was. And there are people who want to go back to the office, there’s people who don’t want to go back. And what it really comes down to, I believe, is the ability for people to choose. And companies that are going to be the most understanding of this, I think are going to navigate hybrid work the best. It doesn’t mean that a company that wants to have employees in the office five days a week, it’s not going to succeed. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is allowing, you know, maybe they have the office and they say, Hey, if you want to come in five days a week, that’s fine. The minimum is three days a week, but those two days, you know, you can choose to work somewhere close to your home, or buy your kids school, it’s it’s your choice. So that’s my theory. And what I think should happen is that companies should, you know, honor people’s individual choices and work with them together to say, Okay, here’s options for you so we can support you in whatever choices works best for you and your family and your schedule. Now in regards to what companies are doing. This is really interesting. And what I love to see is we work with companies who use us in so many different ways. One example is a company that is you know, they have a five year lease, they can’t get out of their lease right now. So they’re you but they are what they did is they’re implementing sensors in their company headquarters. See how many people are coming in, so that when their lease is up, they know how much to scale down. You know, maybe if they’re only using 30% of their office, they know how much they should get rid of. Yeah. But in the meantime, they’re working with us to also track the data on. They gave, you know, their 1000 employees desk fast. How many of those 1000s employees are booking workspaces? Are they booking a desk? Are they booking a meeting room? Are they booking an office? How often are they going in close to their home? Because what they’ll also do is, one, they’re tracking just utilization, which will help them make important real estate decisions. But two, they’re also realizing like maybe, you know, like, Should we open satellite offices, what should we do? So there’s a lot of companies are trying to figure it out on their own. And they’re using a combination of these tools to find the best strategy, a lot of time saving, we save companies a lot of money by them switching to us, since we’re a pay as you go model versus having your own office, which is a fixed costs. So there’s one thing we see companies, for example, we have a data security company, that hundreds of consultants around the US, they are booking meeting rooms 234 times a week for their consultants to meet with clients, for their consultants to meet with each other, across all different markets across 28 different markets in the US companies using and then we’re also seeing other companies that are using no setting different stipends for departments. So you know, company, a very large company say, okay, marketing has $2,000 a month that they can use because they need to collaborate often and meet with each other. Whereas perhaps accounting only has 750 a month, because they don’t really need to meet with each other. And maybe they just are renting a meeting room once a month. And giving you know, their the the accountants access to a desk once a week. So it really ranges and we’re seeing a lot of use of credit spaces like meeting rooms and offices by the day. So that the answer really is it’s all across the board. But what we can say is since January of last year of 2021 month, over month, over a month, we have seen significant growth or our business grows 45% in month, okay? And it’s because companies are going remote, and they’re using, they’re they’re trying to figure it out. So it’s really cool. Like I said, What I love about this stage that we’re in is that everybody is trying to figure it out. There definitely are. So we we have a lot of suggestions and things that we do to help companies navigate. But ultimately it depends on where they’re located, how many employees they have, what their company culture is, what their current real estate strategy is.

 

There’s a lot of factors that go into it. So we’re always happy to talk with companies and say, Look, talk to us about what your concerns are, what your needs are. And we’re happy to give examples of what other companies of your size or your strategy is doing. And just to help out in that way.

 

Pushpak Mundre   

Yeah. I think this co-working space could be a future like, that’s what it seems like.

 

Co-working space as a future

 

Nicole 

We certainly hope so. I mean, I’ve been co working for years now. And what’s the silver lining of COVID is that everybody now understands what remote work is, prior to the pandemic, it was a lot of you know, as you know, people in tech or entrepreneurs or professional services that knew about what remote work was or co working spaces. And now, the whole world has understood remote workers and a lot of the people in the world have realized that they don’t enjoy working from home five days a week. And so now co working when they learn about co working being this option that they can go to, and which is oftentimes a lot closer to their home than the company office. It just seems like a no brainer.

 

Pushpak Mundre  

Yeah. So this is like a good option, which employers are like suppose I think most of the if the employees are the youngsters, like if they are in their early 20s or late 20s. They do want to go to offices or socialize with people basically. So for them, this co working spaces was really good. But for the people who are like who already started family, they have kids, they don’t want to they don’t need to and they don’t want to go to offices because they can spend the time with the family and the kids and all. So this true?

 

Nicole 

Well, yeah, that’s true. I completely agree with that where sometimes when people have you know, they want to be closer to the home or they want to work from their homes, they can also be home with their children. However, there are plenty of parents and older generations that absolutely love co working because they won. They they like certain environments, like they actually like I know a lot of parents will say like, I need to get away from my kids like I need a break. And I think they value like you are totally right with like a Gen Z you know, a younger generation. I think they crave to be around other people and they also want to see their managers more often for professional development and things like that, and so they crave more of like the in person, whereas I do think older Gen They crave having that routine, like a lot of our team clients will say I just like I, you know, I’ve been getting up and putting on a suit for 20 years, I don’t want to stop, you know. And I think also they just value the proximity to home. So although they don’t want to work from home, they don’t want to go downtown, they want to still work in the suburbs, they want to work within three miles of their house versus 10 miles of their house. So yeah, there’s there’s an also there’s different types of workspaces. So there’s workspaces that are very corporate, very, you know, buttoned up professional, and then there’s workspaces that are almost feel like a cafe. Yeah. And what’s great is that, you know, we partner with 1200 workspaces around the world and eight countries right now. And we’re having, you know, more every day. There’s something for everybody. So what’s cool is like, you can go to this space that really speaks to

 

Pushpak Mundre  

Yeah, I think this workspace culture, I think it’s not very much an India like it isn’t from cities. But like, as you said, like you have multiple spaces that this kind of spaces, I think these are mostly is in in the US and Europe, like on the west side. I think, in here in Asia, I don’t think there’s a lot of things, but I think it’s growing now, especially by Aviva, and all the small things are coming along with them. Awesome. So which are your favorite tools like which show help you work remotely. And that will, which will recommend to people as well.

 

Favorite tool for remote working

 

Nicole 

Yeah, with I’ll just speak to our tech stack. Right now we use Slack for our communication, we use notion for our virtual workspace, which I love. Our developers just started using clickup. They really like that, you know, developers, they have their own needs and very specific things that they like. And, you know, a lot of times, sometimes services don’t work for them the way that it works for the rest of the team. So I love that they are always aware of what works best for them. So they just started using clickup for their project management, and they really love that we use for marketing, we used intercom for support, which I loved. We’re now switching over to HubSpot for what else? Gosh, we have so many so many design tools and things like that. So yeah, if people have any questions, please let me know. But in terms of like, the best thing that I you don’t need to have a million tools to have a good company culture and to operate your your company like, you know, having I think it’s more about the policies you have in place. So for example, Slack, like Slack can get unruly, if people are expecting immediate conversation or immediate responses, or people are, you know, only talking in private channels versus the department channel like, and people are not getting information. So I think it’s better to have less amount of tools and clear understanding of how the best practices are to use them versus having you know, so many, because it can be easy to be bombarded with a lot. And nobody knows how to use them.

 

Pushpak Mundre 

Yeah, makes sense. So what’s your company’s strategy? Like? Are you staying remote or hybrid or like going back to Office? So technically, we

 

Nicole’s company strategy

 

Nicole 

have been remote from the beginning. But we also have offices. The reason is, is because, one, you know, we’re co working space owners. So we have co working spaces. We technically have a headquarters in Chicago, because my partner just opened a new co working space and but I also have an office here in Miami, my other co worker, founder has one in New York, because we use our products. So we can we have access to five Johnson, you know, offices and meetings. Yeah, but I mean, I, I love the office. Like I said, we get together as a team every quarter. And I love that. So I still like one day, I want to have the office like a Twitter or a Facebook, that is just magnificent, right? Where, but I think we’ll never be the the company that’s like, Hey, we’re going to be here every day. I love the idea. This hybrid. What I’m seeing a lot of companies doing is once a quarter or twice a year, they bring all their employees together. And if you actually calculate the cost, like if you are 100% remote company and you’re not paying 5000 or $50,000 a month for an office, you can actually afford to bring all your employees together once a year for let’s say 150, you know, $150,000. So I think what I really like about that is being intentional. And then when you gather it’s it’s more meaningful, it’s intentional. So yeah, I mean, yeah, I would still love to have like a like a Twitter type of an office one day, until then. And even then we’ll still have offices around the world where employees can meet up together. So who knows, you know, we’ll see again, maybe holograms one day and then we’ll be in the metaverse we’ll see.

 

Pushpak Mundre  

So what are your top three favorite books? Unlike any remote space, or like, my personal Jasmine,

 

Favorite books

 

Nicole  

who that’s hard  because I’m a huge bookworm, so really, it would have to go based on like category like

 

Pushpak Mundre    

Let’s stick with remote 

 

Nicole 

So with remote, I mean, there is a book actually by Jason freed called Remote. There’s also rework, he is the founder of Basecamp. I really love his policies on work. So look up, Jason freed, he’s a great person on remote work. In terms of remote work, I still think it’s about the employee practices. So I think the culture code is one of my favorite books in regards to employee engagement, and team building best practices, because remote work is truly about making sure your employees are engaged and feel connected to your vision. So I would say the culture code is a big thing. Gosh, what else for remote? I just read a lot. I’m like, I think with the co working industry in itself, I get a lot of information from our associations and from our publications. So if anybody has questions about how to get more involved in the co working world, I can refer, I mean, there’s so many different associations and publications about co working. And we’re very much still like, talk to each other industry where we have conferences, we meet with each other. So yeah, and I have hundreds of books I can recommend. So if anybody has any questions, like just send me, yeah, send me a message. And I’m happy to share with you.

 

Pushpak Mundre  

So I haven noticed one thing do I think, could you also invest in companies like a woman and a woman founding companies?

 

Nicole 

Yeah, I did that in Chicago is currently on pause to speak with everything going on. But at the time, we wanted to have a collaborative way to invest in companies that we didn’t have any equity in exchange or anything like that, it was just a way to pool our money together and help. The concept at that time was that when you are a very early stage entrepreneur, a grant such as $500, or $1,000, can take you leapfrog you ahead 10 steps, because I remember when I was starting my first co working space, and I had zero marketing, like I had, you know, I was going month to month, like in terms of expenses and things like that I needed, you know, just having a new website built for less than $1,000 was still something I couldn’t afford at that time, like from the business revenue. And so we our goal was to help people who, at that stage $500, or $1,000, could really, really take your business, three steps ahead. Because there’s so many grants out there where, you know, you get a large sum of money, but you have to prove that you’re at a certain level and all these things and like, look, when you’re early on entrepreneur, you are this, you are so scrappy, you are all in, you are giving it your own. And sometimes it’s the hardest time to get funding because you haven’t had a lot of traction. And so we just put together a fund where, you know, we were able to grant people money, who really could take that money and use it for something that would move them ahead.

 

Pushpak Mundre 

So any last message for our woman listeners on Women’s Day? Oh, yeah.

 

Nicole’s Message for woman listeners on Women’s Day

 

Nicole 

Um, well, women’s issues are by heart and soul. So I think the thing I would say is, you know, continue to surround yourself with incredible women who inspire you, who also support you because for me, a big part of me growing my business, and just my personal self is to be surrounded by women that make me laugh, women who inspire me, you know, a long time ago, I cut out anybody who was negative, I cut out people who, you know, were complaining and dramatic and things like that. I think it’s important to you know, we as we get older, we don’t have a lot of time for social activities. And so my social activities are like, I actually organize a professional ladies dinner once a month where women, anyone, women can, yeah, any woman can join. And it’s a way to meet other women and to have good conversations and to start relationships that are deeper than just the time you will find it networking events. I think women have an incredible power to be there for each other and support each other. And, you know, I look back at my career, and if it wasn’t for amazing women all along the way, you know, I wouldn’t be where I am now. So I think the biggest thing is just to pick and choose the women that you surround yourself. I love the phrase, you are the five people that you hang out with the most totally. And so I always try to, you know, hang out with women who inspire me, but so that’s more of my, like, experience driven message, but overall, I think, you know, my message to women is always to whatever it is that you you can, you know, manifest it like Go for it. You know, don’t let things hold you back. Put a plan in place and go for it. And if you need help, reach, reach out and ask for help. But you know, the sky is not the limit. You know, we’re in a multiverse go go back Big Sky.

 

Pushpak Mundre  

Awesome. Amazing. So it was really great talking to you, Nicole, I think we talked Yeah, it was really amazing. And especially I think the collaboration, you know, like Sorry, co working space a good way it could be a future than it could like push remote work further as well.

 

Nicole 

I agree. And we, we bet on it. So we certainly hope so. But look, I quit my job eight years ago to start a co working space. I went all in I believe in it. And truly as somebody who’s worked in different office environments, from the very, you know, sterile nine to five clock in clock out to the working in my car being alone, you know, salesperson isolated. I’ve seen lots of different environments, and I love co working, it’s the happy medium of flexibility and autonomy and just community as well, right? Because as we go, you know, people think that we’re gonna all of a sudden become hermits and ovens are going to go in the metaverse and no one’s going to talk to each other. I don’t believe that at all technology adds to our lives, but it’s never going to take away from the human component. And it’s actually going to allow us to have richer vacations. Because when you go to places you’re going to be a lot more intentional, you’re going to say if I’m leaving my house, I want to go to a place where I can meet other people where I can engage in a very meaningful way. So coworking provides that it provides literally, like a co working space is built for people to be productive, and meet other people and engage with other people. And yeah, usually get some really nice coffee and get some nice views as well. But

 

Pushpak Mundre  

yeah, basically, for sure, yeah, sometimes remote work is up and just work with remote work five days a week. So like, even if someone wants to go for two days or three days, so you know, it depends on person to person, but you always have an option. It’s not like you have to just stick to your home basically. So that’s the good thing

 

Nicole 

their own. Know, everybody knows what works for them. I agree.

 

Pushpak Mundre

Amazing. So thank you so much. Once again for doing this. It was really amazing talking to you.

 

Nicole

Yes. Thank you. You are a fantastic host. You have really good questions. Such a great pleasure to chat with you. In fact, thank you.