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Pressured by the tough economic times and the need to cut on cost, majority of Kenyan businesses and individuals are now transitioning from the conventional type of office setup to more hybrid ones.

The uptake of the co-working office set-up has been on the rise ever since the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020. The co-working office set-up is a cyber cafe-like office set up where individuals from different organisations share desks or spaces in an office set up.

They get to access a variety of services from the spaces including internet access, and everything else that one would find in an ideal office set up such as kitchen areas and cafes. With the current high tax regime that most Kenyans are grappling with, businesses and individuals have borrowed the tactic of cutting on cost in order to cope with the tough economic times.

Speaking to Business Hub, Faith Nzomo, the general manager of Skyrise Business Centre said people have become more aware of the office set-up compared to when they were just being introduced.

“We are living in the future, I remember reading a book on this kind of business way before the Covid-19 pandemic, the idea had just started being implemented and it was projected that by 2030 the co-office spaces will have taken over. In 2022 we had about 21,000 co-office set spaces globally, currently they have doubled to about 42,000 globally,” she said.

The country has 20 of these spaces whereby Nairobi, according to her, takes lead with the number of the office set up standing at 15 as other countries continue to adopt the idea. “I think this was accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic because people couldn’t report to the workplaces due to the restrictions,” Nzomo added.

As technology advances and the change in tastes and preference by corporate individuals, businesses mostly the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have embraced the concept considering the fact that they are the most struggling segment of the private sector due to limited access to finances for scalability. “Most of our clients are SMEs and they appreciate the environment they interact with due to affordability, convenience and the aesthetic part of it,” Nzomo added.

As a result, they do not need to burden themselves with the issues of setting up office structures, rather it offers them flexibility as they can decide to work from anywhere within the country hence saving on time and costs.

The success of this new concept has been fuelled by the aesthetic part giving clients a sense of comfort due to the creative interior designs, vantage viewpoints, and additional wow factors that they are provided with.

“What actually keep the clients coming back and even getting referrals is the value for money. Apart from all the aesthetic parts we also offer consultancy services, master classes on different subjects, team building and so much more because those are what most clients want. Ideally, you get a full blended service experience from this kind of structures, something which you can’t really find in a conventional office,” Nzomo explained.

Its affordability has also played a central role, in that most clients are able to access the facility and get to experience what they feel is right by them.  The prices according to the General Manager can range from as low as five thousand shillings for individuals and Sh10,000 for businesses all the way to about Sh400,000 depending on a clients’ tastes and preferences.

Young people have also been seen to be propelling its popularity as they are more catered for by the set up compared to the much older generation.Nzomo said the young population is the future for almost every aspect of businesses because of how much they are vested in technology thereby making everything efficient, saying: “In our offices for instance, these SMEs are run by very young people, mostly the Gen Zs and they are very creative.

Developers have also opted to tap the strategy to keep afloat with the dynamics of office spaces. In an interview with a local broadcaster, Fidelis Wanalwenge, a research assistant at Cytonn Investments said investors are embracing the idea due to the benefits that it comes with.