Co-working spaces are often branded as places that are not only communal but creative, where the interactions you get with people you ordinarily wouldn’t rub shoulders with spark a host of new ideas. Research from Bayes Business School suggests that this isn’t really the case, and indeed co-working spaces can limit our creativity.

The analysis found that while co-working spaces can offer an initial spike in opportunities to collaborate, they pretty soon start to inhibit our attempts to collaborate as the informal setting of co-working spaces ultimately gets in the way of collaboration.

“The rise of co-working spaces as new forms of work has redefined our understanding of the traditional physical, temporal and spatial boundaries of organizations,” the researchers explain.

Social inhibitor

For instance, the lounges, communal kitchens, and breakout areas boosted collaboration to begin with but soon become stilted and less meaningful. Participants also said that the desire for scale and growth from space organizers meant that it became more difficult to use the space effectively.

“It is the responsibility of the host of the space and those that use it to make it a setting that can see booming partnerships and a hotbed of next generation ideas,” the researchers explain. “Entrepreneurs need to embrace the early-stage interactions to take the first step towards collaborative working, with workspace managers working as catalysts to drive these partnerships.”

They believe that this highlights the fact that spaces can’t expect magic to happen automatically, and that instead there is a need for people to facilitate and encourage the kind of activities that support collaboration and cooperation.

“Post pandemic we can expect more uncertainty in how space is re-appropriated by individuals and entrepreneurial teams forming collaboration,” they conclude. “Workspace managers may need to leave room for experimentation and allow flexibility.”