Canton Zug, 31.03.2020

What to do if your home office gets too tight?

Various coworking operators are currently actively beating the advertising drum. They believe that interest may soon grow sharply.

It is gradually becoming clear to  those of us who have been sitting in our home office over the last week: working at home is not always easy. If you live alone, loneliness will catch up with you sooner or later. And if you have a partner and/or children who are also at home during these unusual days, you will realise at some point that things can become pretty tight in your own four walls.

Some of those who have the feeling that the ceiling is about to fall on their heads in their home office, or who just long for a change of scenery are now being tempted by coworking offers. The term ‘coworking’ stands for a form of working together in which, in order to have an exchange of ideas/thoughts and to gain flexibility, micro-entrepreneurs, creative talents and start-ups rent a space in an open-plan office. In these times of the Corona infection, these workplaces are simply advertised as an alternative to working in your own home.

"We’ve been promoting our coworking places on various social platforms for a few days now," says Zsuzsa Schärli, head of 6280.ch in Hochdorf, the largest coworking operator in the canton of Lucerne. In the run-up, of course, she had to check whether such places could be operated at all. The Lucerne Department of Construction, Environment and Economic Affairs finally gave the green light - provided that the current protective measures of the Federal Office of Public Health are observed. In the case of open-plan offices, this means: at least two metres between the workplaces. "With an office space of a thousand square metres, that's no problem for us," says Schärli.

Coworking: A Prescription against the Spread of the Virus?
Another coworking operator from the city of Lucerne goes even further. The coworking space on Hirschengraben has been attracting visitors for a week with a “Corona special offer” at discounted rates. The response is still modest, says Hirschengraben Coworking President Manuel Brun. Five people have rented a workplace in the past few days because they don't want to work from home., He believes that interest could increase sharply in the coming weeks, however.

Visitors to the coworking provider 6280.ch in Hochdorf are currently working with a safety distance.

Office Lab, the largest coworking provider in Switzerland, which, among other things, operates workplaces in the Zug ‘Freiruum’, is also increasing its advertising. On the company's website, coworking is even described as a possible recipe against the spread of the corona virus: “Defy the virus with ‘office splitting’. If you don’t have the necessary space for this, coworking is the appropriate measure”  it says on one page.

Office splitting is the practice of allocating employees with business-critical functions to separate offices, if necessary including external offices, as has already been implemented by the UBS, Credit Suisse or the Schwyzer logistics group Kuehne + Nagel. "As not all companies have the appropriate space to accommodate the split departments, coworking providers are currently in great demand," says Office Lab CEO Roger Krieg.

The operators of coworking places also expect that there will be a real rush for coworking possibilities once the Federal Council's measures to contain the pandemic are loosened. "We are currently experiencing a fundamental rethink, by both the employee and the employer," says Jenny Schäpper-Uster, board member of the Village Office cooperative and former president of Coworking Switzerland. "As a result of the Corona virus, the acceptance of new forms of work is likely to be considerably greater."

Working in a hotel room
Creative hotel operators have also seen the signs of the times. Since mid-March, for example, the Lofthotel Murg on the Walensee in the canton of St. Gallen has been offering its rooms as office space - to compensate some of the current slump in income. A survey of hotels in Lucerne, which are currently also under pressure, shows that almost every hotel that is still open is also willing to rent their rooms to people who are looking for a workplace. “We haven't had any specific enquiries yet, but we’ll certainly  find a solution if someone is interested. We have the space,” says Brigitte Heller, director of the Hotel Monopol. "It’s a nice idea that we would be happy to implement if necessary," says the Ibis chain.