Virtual offices versus Traditional brick and mortar offices

There are several reasons why many people are changing from the traditional office set up to a virtual one. There are also reasons why some would rather remain with the traditional set up than to try the new innovative approach to office management. This is largely because many people have their own preferences, many businesses are run in different styles and so each business is likely to have its preferred style of an office set up. However, what is required is a deeper understanding of how these two styles of office management work and the advantages that each one of them holds. With the knowledge of this, businesses owners will make informed choices as to which kind of office setup they should use.

Location

Whereas the traditional brick and mortar office is located at central physical address, the virtual office is located online and not at a particular physical location. With traditional brick and mortar office setup, employees have to report to the office every morning, take up their positions and get to work. When it is time to leave, usually in the evening, the office is closed and everyone is dismissed. This is not the case with the virtual office setting. Here, employees work from their homes, deliver work online and follow everything else regarding the office from their remote locations.

Working Hours

The traditional office setting requires that employees report to work at a set time and leave at another specified time. For many organizations, it is usually 8 am to 5 pm. Within this period of time, the employees are required to have finished the work that was assigned to them by their seniors and they need to submit it back. This a sharp contrast to the virtual office setting where the employee has a personal customized working schedule. They set their own working hours as long as they submit the work within the period of time that was specified by the employer. An employee can work during the day and can engage in other activities other than work, and this would worry the employer the least.

Clients

In a virtual office, the clients mainly engage in conversations with their service providers and business partners through technology systems such as email and telephone. Their queries are responded to by the relevant department and responses sent to them within shorter periods of time. They do not travel to any locations to discuss anything and do not have to show up at offices to finalize deals. In the traditional brick and mortar office set up, clients and business partners have to come to the office to sign up papers and to discus face to face with their other partners to agree on several things.

Traditional brick and mortar offices also keep their information and data in physical files that are kept on shelves in the office. There is no such thing with virtual offices. Here, information is stored as data files in the online office systems (usually backed up with portable hard drives) and made accessible to those people who need to use it. It is therefore easier to access information in this virtual set up.