
Coworking spaces were originally created to offer individuals and young companies a space outside of the home to work. At its most basic level, they offer a physical space – like any other office. But, we know traditional offices offer their tenants much more than just desks and meeting spaces; if designed and used well, they can offer employers and employees a sense of culture, community, and professional identity.
Can coworking spaces do the same?
To uncover the shifting landscape of coworking spaces, design firm HLWand iconic coworking OG WeWork, with the help of collaborators at the University of Michigan, set about answering the question, “How do highly curated coworking cultures and traditional offices impact the professional identity of members, employees andtheir organizations?”

Between 2017 and 2018, Pete Bacevice, Director of Research at HLW, and his team collaborated with WeWork to survey“over 1,000 of their new individual members in the United States with a goal to study member identity. Their findings suggest that when organizations take the time to choose a coworking space that aligns with the image they want to project – about their employees and about their business – workers will experience higher levels of thriving, and the organizations will benefit as well, causing employees to identify even more strongly with their purpose and values.”
The study reveals multiple points of guidance in the power coworking interiors have on their member companies and individuals, providing a sense of culture and meaningful interaction, just like traditional offices.

In a Harvard Business Review article detailing the study, Mr. Bacevice and his team wrote:
“Since the first coworking space appeared in 2005, over 14,000 have opened around the world. While the earlier generation sought to provide independent workers with resources and support that couldn’t be found at home, coffee shops, or other nomadic locations, today’s spaces have evolved into businesses that also support the needs of large organizations. Some use it to house employees located in remote locations, relieving them from the expense of a long-term lease. Other small businesses and early stage ventures that have uncertain headcount projections or business growth rates operate entirely from coworking spaces due to the spatial flexibility.”
“Over the past several years, we have studied how these environments impact individual workers, taking into account the amenities, branding, aesthetics, and unique cultures created from diverse people and companies working together under one roof. We have found that workers benefit from coworking spaces more than traditional offices. They experience greater levels of flexibilityand thriving (defined as vitality and learning at work), a greater ability to network, as well as a stronger sense of community. However, up until now, we have not known how this impacts the businesses they work for.”

“We wanted to know to what extent members identify with the culture of their coworking space and whether or not this impacts the extent to which they identify with their company or employer. After all, organizations invest valuable resources nurturing connectivity among employees and developing work cultures. But, in a coworking space that houses multiple organizations, there are several messages, norms, and values, competing for members’ attention.”

Relationship to WeWork vs. Relationship to Organization
“Mr. Bacevice detailed his analysis: “Mr. 71% worked full-time for companies that are either located in a WeWork office or use WeWork for remote individuals and teams. The remaining 29% included business owners, contractors, sole proprietors, and part-time workers. Through a survey, we asked members to indicate their level of agreement with statements like “I have a lot in common with others at WeWork” and “I have a lot in common with others in my organization” to determine how much they identify with WeWork versus their organizations. Identity was defined as the extent to which one feels emotionally, psychologically, and subjectively bound to an employer (or any other platform they work for) and was measured on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest association and 5 being the highest.”

“We found that members strongly identify with their work organizations, with the majority scoring over 4 points, even after working in the WeWork office for a long period of time. In general, members identify less so with WeWork, with the majority scoring more than 1 point lower on the same 5-point scale. This difference in identity scores intrigued us and led us to explore why.”

The Why and How: Coworking & Professional Identity
Mr. Bacevice, in an officeinsight email interview, pointed to four specific reasons behind the idea that coworking spaces, just as much as traditional offices, can provide their members with a sense of professionalism and creditability:
>People can demonstrate professional behavior regardless of where they work.
>For some people, depending on the nature of their work (for example, people who regularly meet face to face with clients), certain symbols are necessary for demonstrating professionalism to others. Clients choose to work with certain people and certain organizations. A well-designed work environment is one of many symbols that convey messages about an organization’s values.
>For workers who don’t have access to a traditional office, coworking can provide them with the symbolism of a workplace that working from home might not provide.
>Some remote workers want to feel connected to other professionals and feel a sense of community or energy that comes from working in a professional setting. Coworking spaces can provide those elements.
Regardless of where a company’s employees work, how do you ensure those employees feel valued, according to Mr. Bacevice?
>Maintain open lines of communication, whether through virtual means, face-to-face, or a combination of both
>Mentor them
>Involve them in decision-making
>Set realistic goals that people can meet, trust them to do the right thing in achieving those goals, and hold them accountable for performance

The Harvard Business Review article continued: “At the end of our study, we asked members to describe how WeWork affects their professional identity. Some respondents replied neutrally, “It’s just a space.” These members derive benefits from the more practical elements of membership, such as spatial amenities or convenience of location. Other members, however, said that WeWork plays an active role in shaping their professional and organizational identities. These members had higher identity scores for both their work organizations and WeWork (though the gap between the two remained). They also experience higher levels of thriving and productivity at work.”
“The results of this study reinforce a key theme from our years of research: the choice to work in a coworking space is based on both practical, financially-driven variables as well as experiential, and culturally-driven variables. At a basic level, coworking is a service that simplifies the transaction of accessing and occupying a workspace. However, it is also a social product that nurtures a sense of belongingness to its members. In addition to spaces that target a full range of member demographics, there are, for example, niché coworking spaces for women, people of color, social ventures, lawyers, architects, and fashion businesses. Because switching costs among coworking spaces are relatively low due to the lack of long-term member leases and the availability of different service providers, members can choose a space that reflects their identity and the identity they want to cultivate for their business.”
