How Can Automation Benefit Coworking Spaces?
Lesson #1: your time is invaluable
November 15, 2024
Blog
Spoiler alert: automation is fundamentally disrupting the coworking and flex space industry, empowering owners and operators to save time, increase efficiency, and create truly unforgettable member experiences.
2024 will forever be known as the year that automation took the world of coworking by storm. Thanks to advancements in technology, the dream of streamlined operations and less daily manual tasks is finally becoming a reality for coworking owners and operators, and we couldn’t be more excited about it.
According to a survey conducted by the Optix team in May of this year, 90% of coworking owners and operators say automation is critical to achieving business outcomes this year.
In this article, we’ll show you exactly why forward-thinking coworking space owners and operators are betting so hard on automation by exploring three key benefits:
- Saving time to allow for a focus on strategic growth
- Boosting efficiency across operations
- Elevating the member experience
Then, we’ll discuss how all three of these benefits work together to help operators achieve the ultimate outcome for their business: growth.
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What does automation in coworking spaces mean?
When we say “automation in coworking spaces” or “coworking space automation”, we’re referring to the act of using technology like coworking space automation software and other related tools to help streamline key business processes in your coworking or flex space business.
In our article, How to Create an Automated Coworking Space in 2024, we describe in detail exactly what can be automated in a coworking space and how to begin creating an automated coworking ecosystem. Here’s a quick look at the difference between a traditional or manually run coworking space and an automated coworking space.
Manual coworking spaces vs. automated coworking spaces
| Task | Manual coworking space | Automated coworking space |
| Booking | A member makes a booking by talking directly to a community manager | A member can book any resource they want on their phone |
| Invoicing | At the end of the month, a member pays their invoice via a check or credit card at the front desk | At the end of the month, a member’s credit card is automatically charged and an invoice is automatically created for them |
| Onboarding | Community managers manually send welcome emails to each new member that joins | A welcome email nurture sequence is automatically sent to every new member after joining |
| Invoicing | Operations managers manually follow-up with late payments and overdue invoices | Message reminders are automatically sent to members after a payment is missed |
Steve Pirt, co-founder and CEO at FlexWerk, has created what he calls a “friction-free ecosystem” in his fitness-oriented coworking space. Using a number of technology platforms including Optix, he’s able to create an automated experience for his members and team from the moment someone expresses interest in FlexWerk to after they become a member.
- Guests sign up for FlexWerk and complete their profile via the FlexWerk app powered by Optix
- They get access to the space via automated access control system Kisi
- Each room’s lighting, sound, and video all turn on automatically when needed
By the time a guest walks through the doors, their team already knows everything they need to know about them.
"Nobody gains access into our lobby, let alone our secondary spaces, without being on the app. And when you walk into our space, my team already knows exactly who's going to be there, for what purpose, and at what time."
What are the benefits of automation for coworking space owners and operators?
An astonishing 97% of coworking owners and/or founders report that automation is “Important” or “Very Important” to their business. Here’s why.
1. Automation helps operators save time
One of the most surprising findings from our survey this year was the amount of time that operators are spending with technology tools, over 50% of their day (53% to be exact).
This is problematic for a few reasons:
- There is an opportunity cost to low-impact activities: every minute you spend working on a low-impact activity is a minute you’re not spending thinking strategically about growing your business — eventually, this adds up to missed opportunities
- Time is needed to grow and scale: tasks that can be automated free up your bandwidth for strategic decision-making and expansion. Investing in tools that automate repetitive tasks might initially have a cost, but with time, could help you grow your business
- Over investing in the wrong activities can lead to burn-out: almost half of US workers have experienced burn-out at some point in their career. Prioritizing high-impact, fulfilling work can help to maintain energy and passion, ensuring long-term productivity and sustainability
Quantifying your time can be challenging, but consider this:
The average coworking community manager makes $50,000 USD a year or roughly $24/hr according to research by Optix. If your community manager is spending 50% of their day on technology tools, that means it is costing you $480 a week or $1,920 a month for them to be completing manual, repetitive tasks.
Automate your coworking space with Optix
2. You can increase the efficiency of your team and your entire business
Every time a new member joins your coworking space, your community manager needs to do the following:
- Add the member to the back-end of your coworking space software
- Update their account information
- Send them a welcome email
- Create a welcome post for them on the Community Feed
- Set up a time to walk them through the house rules
- Schedule a check-in after one, three, and six months
This means that every time a new member joins, your community manager is spending roughly 2-3 hours setting everything up for them.
Now what if you could create an automation that takes care of everything outlined above in minutes without your community manager needing to do anything except enroll them in a workflow? That’s up to three hours of time that your team would be getting back, a huge improvement in overall efficiency.
It’s just one example, but it illustrates a clear trend in how we’re seeing our coworking clients use automation to find efficiency improvements in their daily operations.
3. It elevates the experience for your members and your team
Below, we’re going to present two different scenarios. You tell us which is a more inspiring environment to work in, and a more inspiring experience for your team.
Scenario one
Katie comes to work in the morning and sees a number of emails from members regarding issues with their payments and questions on how to book a desk. She spends the first two hours of her day heads-down, responding to emails. She then needs to offboard two members which involves a number of manual steps in her technology platform. Finally, since it’s the end of the month, she sees there has been several failed payments. She emails each person individually letting them know of the missed payment. By the time all of the admin work is complete, it’s already 3 pm and she only has two hours left to connect with her community members.
Scenario two
Katie comes to work in the morning. She has one or two emails from new members asking questions, but otherwise her community is empowered with the information they need to find things on their own. She sees that two members are leaving the community, and she enrolls them into an automated offboarding workflow. She checks a couple of other things in the dashboard, but is done with her admin work before noon. She spends the rest of the day connecting with members, strategizing about new social media content they can create and some great ideas for upcoming events in their coworking space.
Thanks to automation, Katie has saved hours on tedious admin tasks, freeing up her time to connect with members and focus on growth activities. And this boost in efficiency leads to a more engaged community and a smoother, more productive workday.
Which scenario would you prefer for yourself? Which scenario would you prefer for your team?
Automations is capable of taking the things you dislike off your plate while making more space to do the things you actually want to be spending your time on.
“Right now I’m answering emails outside of work hours when someone in the community needs something. Automations means I won’t have to do that.”
How can automation help coworking owners and operators grow their business?
70% of coworking space owners and operators say that growing their members is the most important thing in their business according to the 2023 Optix annual survey.
The real magic of automation is when all of the benefits listed above — time savings, increased efficiency, and an elevated experience — come together to help your business grow. Here’s how.
- More time for your community, more time for growth: when you’re spending less time doing manual repetitive tasks, you can spend more time thinking about and doing work to grow your business
- Increased efficiency, increased ability to scale: finding efficiencies in your business leads to new opportunities to scale
- Happy team, happy members, happy brand: building a strong brand partially depends on having a cohesive team and members, which can help you scale your business
Together, automation can have a direct impact on your ability to grow and scale your coworking business.
Automating your coworking space with Optix
As the first coworking space automation platform, we know a thing or two about automation in coworking spaces. We’ve been helping coworking and flex space operators automate their business and reach new levels of growth with Automations.
With Optix, you can automate:
- Key business operations like invoicing, billing, and bookings
- Member communication and lead management
- Member engagement like regular check-ins and event promotion
- And more!
It is the only coworking software on the market designed to help you run an autonomous business, so you can focus on the things that really matter — building a connected and integrated community. Connect with a member of our team today.
