Work Near Home: The Movement Changing Everything We Know About the World of Work
When I lived in Edinburgh, I joined a coworking space just a 15-minute walk away from my flat in Leith.
The Shore, Leith
When I lived in Edinburgh, I joined a coworking space just a 15-minute walk away from my flat in Leith.
This was 2021, and the world (or Scotland at least) had just reopened. We’d been in and out of lockdowns for well over a year and, all while working from home, I’d completed a Master’s degree, and launched my freelance business.
At this point I desperately needed to get out of the house otherwise I was about to go stir crazy (especially given both me and my partner were working from home day in, day out). But equally, I hadn’t met anyone since moving to Edinburgh and was eager to make new social connections.
I researched coworking spaces near me and discovered a Clockwise workspace only a 15-minute walk away from home (a lovely wander down the Waters of Leith). In fact, I realised this was the office we regularly walked past on lockdown walks, often stopping to peer into the glassy boardroom.
The Scottish saying – What’s fur yer no go by yer – could not be more apt.
I went along for a taster day, even joining a morning Yoga session. By the end of it – I’d become a member of the Clockwise Leith community. Over the next year, I met lots of wonderful coworkers, joined in the socials ranging from whiskey tasting to talks on the metaverse, and kept connected to the community who I’d bump into out and about in Leith.
Little to my knowledge at the time, I was working near home – a movement that’s changing everything we know about the world of work and the coworking industry.
Work near home – an explanation
Coined by the founder of Patch coworking spaces, Freddie Fforde, “work near home” is about the ability to work closer to home, supported by the rise of local, neighbourhood workspaces and third places. According to Freddie, “work near home is a new category to describe what we can achieve by reinvesting our time, money, and talent into the places and people near where we live.”
Working near home, Freddie continues, is the perfect alternative to commuting to the office – an expensive and time-consuming daily exercise that we’d rather not do 5 days a week. A BBC article about the work near home trend, published towards the end of last year, shared Jill’s story (a Patch Twickenham member), who coworks there a couple of times a week rather than commuting two hours to the City, or working from home alongside her husband.
Of course, the will-we-won’t-we return to the office is old news (and Freddie’s manifesto dates back to 2021).
The majority of our workforce no longer commutes to the office every day, after tasting that freedom and having more time for other things, like spending time with family, ticking those ladmin (life admin) tasks off, and importantly for one in seven of the population, caregiving commitments.
Working from home is now a constitutional right rather than a nice-to-have.
Thanks to the Flexible Working Bill passed last year, workers now have “the right to request flexible working from day one of a new job, with employers required to consider any requests and provide a reason before rejection.” So, when it comes to the return to the office conversation, workers are in the driving seat (well, not quite the driving seat because why drive to work when you no longer have to?!).
A recent IWG article reports some impressive statistics about flexible working in the UK. A “phenomenal 88% of UK workers say that flexible working arrangements are essential for a more fulfilling professional life that delivers improvements in their mental, physical, financial, and social health.” Hybrid workers have increased their sleep by a staggering 71 extra hours annually, and have more time to spend with family and friends, or prepping more nutritious meals, making them feel 3-4% more productive at work.
Why work near home when you can work FROM home?
Working from home is great and all. I like to WFH when I write content and need to really, really focus. But distractions happen at home. Deliveries turning up, noisy family members, housework, and admin tasks piling up in front of our eyes…our duties beyond work can inevitably pull us from the tasks at hand.
Working from home all the time can also contribute to feelings of loneliness.
In a poll conducted by Knight Frank, 40% of people who worked from home felt that it negatively impacted their mental health. Everyone’s experience is different, it concluded, but Euan Hall, Chief Executive at the Land Trust, believes that “WFH is going to be a major cause of mental ill health in years to come. People are naturally sociable – we need face-to-face interaction.”
As a collective, we need social interaction but also recognise that work cannot be viewed separately from life. The blurring of boundaries around how and where we work has led to a total evaluation of work as it stands, and what it means to us individually. We’ve brought work literally into our homes, so how do we make it work for us? Of course, this doesn’t discount the fact that many professions simply can’t blur life and work, including key workers who cannot take their work home.
That’s another benefit of working near home – the community, which contributes to a greater work-life balance and overall feelings of happiness (combating those sensations of isolation).
Where do we find those human connections that stimulate us, and make us feel part of something? It’s in a coworking space, of course, a place where community, collaboration and connection are the essence of working amongst others.
A friend’s doggie outside Clockwise Leith
Social transformation of people and places
But working near home doesn’t just happen in a shared workspace or office. We can also work out of third places too.
Shortly after joining Clockwise, I joined a local gym a 15-minute walk from my flat, and the workspace as it happens. The space came with a member’s adult lounge (their name, not mine) and cafe, giving me another workplace option in between exercise classes. In fact, a report by JLL declares that most people prioritise work-life balance over work, urging developers to pair work and fitness amenities in spaces for workers to easily carve time out of their working day for that gym class, yoga session, or run.
That’s not the only service that a local workspace can sit alongside.
Clockwise Leith had a cafe and bar that opened in the evenings, where events took place if they weren’t in the boardroom. The space is adaptable, and that’s what brings in more people whether they be members of the coworking community or the general public. As members, we were given discounts to use in local businesses including a hairdresser salon down the street, a restaurant (I went there even at weekends), and even local museums, a fab perk because Royal Yacht Britannia was right around the corner.
By 2022, the rise of working from home or near have contributed to hair and beauty service providers taking over an impressive additional 5,1000 high streets premises in the UK. Meanwhile, big clothing chains and banks continued to disappear off high streets altogether.
This showcases that independent, community-focussed offerings are the ones that people value most, as we support our small, and growing businesses and the people who put so much love into their brands and services.
Workspaces that sit alongside local service provides enable workers to pop out for a haircut in the middle of the day, or have a coffee with a friend at lunchtime. More money spent on these businesses revitalises high streets and town centres, improving the quality of life.
When I attended GCUC UK Manchester last month, we learned that demand for local workspace beyond London was booming. Manchester is officially declared the UK’s second city for commercial real estate investment.
Working near home also contributes to a greater impact on our people and places.
If everyone walked or cycled to work, reducing the need to drive or take public transport (massive pollutant contributors), our neighbourhoods would be cleaner, healthier to live in, and safer too. Not to mention the impact that working near home has on our mental and physical health, and overall happiness.
Working near home is a win-win all around. As I move to a new neighbourhood next month, I’m really intrigued to work locally again, and I can’t wait to see what pops up in the coming years.
I spoke a little bit about my coworking journey with Suzanne Murdock a few months ago. Listen to our conversation here.
Read a couple of similar articles I wrote about local coworking spaces, and 15-minute cities for Allwork.Space