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If you were a telecommuter and could work from home, would you ever pay to work in an office again? In Lincoln, there are a growing number of people doing just that.
UPDATED 1/15/2015 @ 10:54PM : Scroll to bottom of page to see video of this story.
Walk inside FUSE Coworking in Lincoln’s Haymarket, and you’ll find yourself in a very sleek and stylish space.
There are desks, computers, phones, a kitchen area, conference rooms. The desks, though, can be rented by the day, the kitchen has a keg of local craft beer on tap, and the dozen or so people working in the office at any given time-- don’t actually work for FUSE.
At least seven different companies are represented, and each is eager to help the next.
FUSE co-founder Andy Beecham said coworking has helped bring Lincoln's start-up community "out of their basements." Beecham said the gathering of mental resources in such close quarters can create invaluable relationships business owners will need to succeed. (Photo by Ryan Robertson, NET News)
For example, a marketing company advises a non-profit arts organization how to drum-up more revenue.
FUSE is based on a concept called “coworking.”
“Coworking is a style of work for individuals with different backgrounds who want to share space and ideas," said Andy Beecham, one of FUSE's three founders. "We come together, we share space, we collaborate, and we help each other out.”
Since opening two years ago, FUSE’s membership numbers have tripled, from 9 members to 30. The first dedicated coworking space in the U.S. was created in San Francisco in 2005. There are now more than 700 coworking spaces across the country.
But coworking is still a fairly new trend, one Beecham said is designed for people like him who don’t need to work in an office, but would like to.
“Anyone for whom their laptop is their office can take advantage of coworking,” Beecham said. “It can be legal or accounting, but typically it’s folks who tend to live more in the digital world who don’t need to be carrying around a lot of paper with them.”
For $20 a day, or $125 a month, coworkers are given desk space and access to the internet, printers, meeting rooms, coffee, and beer -- as long as the keg isn’t empty.
But Beecham said the most valuable part of coworking is the business-to-business relationships.
Yaw Odame is the co-founder of seamster.io and credits coworking for his company's success. Odame said he received advice from a variety of business owners, and established connections which eventually led him to investors. (Photo by Ryan Robertson, NET News)
Yaw Odame has spent time in several coworking offices in different states, developing software for his tech startup.
A few weeks ago, Odame secured the necessary funding to begin beta testing his product, essentially getting his start-up off the ground.
Odame said it wouldn’t have been possible without his coworkers.
“Extremely important. What it did was it allowed me to make connections to people that I wouldn’t have been able to meet if I was just working from home,” Odame said.
While coworking seems to be better suited for urban areas, there are those in more rural communities who would not mind taking their “work-from-home” business to an office space.
Aaron Clark owns atbashservices.com, a software company based in central Nebraska. For the last seven months, he’s been working out of his home in Minden.
“It’s easier to stay focused in an office, because [at home] there’s so many little distractions like I need to do my dishes, or my dog needs taken out or I should take out the trash,” Clark said. “When you’re working at a different office or you’re away from your home, you’re not worried about those kinds of things and you can focus on your work.”
Clark said he stopped in at FUSE once while in Lincoln and was immediately sold on the coworking concept.
But that’s not to say he doesn’t like working from home. On the contrary, he said the ability to set his own hours is a great perk.
Aaron Clark has been working from home for the last 7 months. Clark said while he would prefer working in a coworking space, he'd still rather be home than in a traditional office. Clark said the flexibility his schedule offers him means he can spend more time with his family. (Photo by Ryan Robertson, NET News)
“Sometimes I’ll go to the elementary school and eat lunch with my kid, or I’ll take a nap, or do dishes,” Clark said.
Forbes Business Magazine reported flexibility as a top reason why one in five Americans now work from a home office at least once a week.
Laurie Miller, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, studies workplace flexibility.
“From a worker standpoint, you’re still working and getting compensated for your work. From an employer standpoint, you still have workers working, not being absent," Miller said. "So when we think about labor supply or labor force participation, having more flexibility will make it - or should make it - more possible for workers to be working.”
Miller said not every company can afford to offer the same sort of flexibility as others, so don’t expect everyone to be working from home or coworking in the future.
Laurie Miller is an assistant professor of practice in the College of Business Administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Miller studies workplace flexibility. She said in theory, the more flexible a company is in setting its employees' schedule or other work habits, the easier it should be for workers to work. However, Miller is quick to point out not every business can offer flexibility. (Photo by Ryan Robertson, NET News)
But, she admitted, coworking workspaces could become much more common.
“To be honest, these are new. I’m not that much older than some of my students and I’m looking at them and going, ‘You’re doing what? You’re going where to do your work when? How is that even possible?’ I couldn’t imagine staying up till 11 or 12 o’clock at night doing work and being productive, but if that’s what works for them, it works,” Miller said.
Finding what works for workers is what Robert Hinrichs is all about. He’s another FUSE co-founder. He said coworking has the power to change the entire culture of business.
Hinrichs said the time he spends helping his coworkers is like an investment.
“You don’t expect, ‘Oh, I talked to you for an hour about your business, here’s my $250 invoice,’ but the idea is that we’re kind of planting the seeds and the payoff of those relationships happen when people find success based on interacting with one another,” Hinrichs said.
Helping others find success may prove quite successful for Hinrichs and his partners. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2020, 40 percent of the American workforce will be freelancers.
Hinrichs said that also means 40 percent of the American workforce have the potential to be his coworker.
Reporter's Note added 9:23am 1/13/2015:
The Lincoln Chamber of Commerce confirms a non-profit coworking hub will open sometime in the near future near 14th & P Streets downtown.