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With remote work and flexible work arrangements across sectors, there are many reasons to work over the weekends instead of the 9 to 5 routine. Working remotely has had innumerable benefits including flexible hours, no commute, office in the neighbourhood and autonomy over when you want to work.
A large percentage of the workforce are now open to work on the weekend. Not because their managers are forcing them to work on the weekends, or they cannot stop thinking about work. Working on the weekend could also be about building one's passion, side hustles, gig work and time sensitive priority assignments.
Gone are the days of working over the weekends from a friend's empty house, garage, terrace. Working over the weekend from a co-working space is trending, which is taking over lazing on the couch with Netflix all day.
So, if you find somebody sitting by the window at a hot desk on a Saturday afternoon, don't assume they are grumping or forced into completing the left-over task. They might be developing something unique or strengthening their career. Don't undermine, Apple by Steve Jobs was initiated while he was working full-time at Atari, start-up demi-gods BillDesk founders MN Srinivasu, A Kaushal & K Ganapathy germ seeded the payment gateway idea while they were working with Arthur Andersen. Even the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Agreed, weekends are a great tool for balancing work and life. However, the current generation of remote workforce including enterprise & start-up employees, not just the freelancers, want to invest in making the long holidays and weekends meaningful for their career.
Here is a deep look at how different individuals and teams are using coworking spaces during the weekends. And effectively finding ways to avoid distractions and focussing on creating milestones.
Coworking space for individuals
A small section of the working class like spinsters, bachelors, folks who are away from their hometowns, workaholics, may find it great to work on weekends. Working over the weekends works in their best interest as they keep themselves engaged while sipping the free coffee and high-speed internet at these coworking spaces open on weekends.
Be it for a side hustle or getting left over tasks completed for the week to come, work keeps them mentally occupied and away from isolation, depression, and other lonely emotional instability.
Many people who would like to make some extra income could choose to work overtime on weekends. A few enrol themselves for a job related to their special interests while having an additional income. Many enjoy indulging in their field of interest like being a freelance consultant, mentor in academics, a coach in any game of their choice, even a paid attendant.
Working in a space other than your routine job can help relieve stress and be a pleasurable experience. Coworking spaces offer a balanced place to focus and really work on your passion over weekends. Explore one near you.
Many professionals across Noida, Mumbai pick up the hot desks which are conveniently accessible through metro / rail systems to work on their side hustles during the weekends.
Team Building Weekends
In the remote work model, team building, and collaboration has become crucial to business. Improving the communication and cohesion with the teams, reducing the stress, and engaging in encouraging conversation with employees has become imperative. While a weekend collaboration does need convincing and organising instead of offsites and retreats during these times, companies are choosing to have team building events more frequently.
Meeting rooms at coworking spaces are excellently being transformed into casual collaboration spaces to unwind. The unity vibes liven their spirits up and motivate them to perform better. Many times, team-building activities help focus problem-solving skills for the work group. Or one could even take up a professional weekend course or undertake a good training series at a coworking space and enjoy networking opportunities and upskill alongside.
Many organizations in Pune and Hyderabad have offsite sessions for a day on Saturdays.
Impressing clients with on - demand meeting rooms
Many professionals, especially the ones that face end customers or clientele work over weekends.
Unusual but true, new business pitches, creative meetings, virtual discussions for super-fast big projects occur over the weekends. It is very hard to keep the focus on with WFH, so teams choose the meeting rooms and private cabins to finalise their time sensitive projects.
Recently, the demand for war rooms has increased rapidly with our customer base. The professionals combine these with co-living to save time and energy.
Another classic example is the use case of meeting rooms by customer and patient facing professionals and businesses. An ayurvedic doctor books the meeting rooms across different areas on rotations. She chooses to be available in those areas rather than expecting her customers to visit her at a far-off location. In addition to reducing the administrative burden, operational cost, she has also been making herself flexible to her patients.
Weekend of Learning
Our cycle of work takes over the entire week. There is hardly any time to take up new learning and crash courses in an interesting subject. Yes, the in-person and hybrid events are back, and it would have a positive change on you. The community in the coworking space helps you refresh your minds and events happen almost every weekend, you always have something new to learn, network and chit chat for professional growth. With peaking vaccination implementation and other protocols being stringently followed, coworking communities are already beginning to host by invitation, limited attendee conferences and meetings in 2021-22.
Meeting rooms in Viman nagar and Baner, in Pune are very high in demand for training and upskilling sessions.
