The Workplace
Co-working Space & Mailbox Services in Cheltenham
We love hearing about what our members get up to in their spare time – there really is never a dull moment. Last weekend, Steve participated in a wrestling match in Portsmouth!
We’ve only gone and done it!
Achieving this B Corp certification means so much to us!
This award recognises that The Workplace, meet high standards of verified social and environmental performance and responsibility.
It took months of hard work to document all the practises that have formed our philosophies since we opened our first space 7 years ago. It has been an intense process!
We knew we were doing all of the eco things like recycling, sourcing non-plastic teabags, using energy-saving lightbulbs and shopping local. But it turns out there were so many other elements that boosted our position, such as volunteering, staff benefits or supporting local businesses.
Founder and company director, Claire Storey, comments:
“We are so proud to be recognised for the things that have always made up The Workplace philosophy.”
It’s a rigorous process, covering five key impact areas of your company’s ethos towards governance, workers, community, environment and clients. Completing the assessment was insightful and we all discovered that The Workplace is much more than just a flexible workspace provider.
Since March 2024 we have been working with B Corp to analyse our practices. This required quite a few spreadsheets and almost two-hundred questions… each time we answered one we’d be asked a few more!
Of course, we will be sharing our news far and wide…… but we would like to do even better with our next assessment. B Corp companies are reverified every three years so we will use this as an opportunity keep improving.
The great thing about the B Corp process is the way it can help you to become even more sustainable. Now that we are part of the B Hive, we are able to connect with existing B Corporations around the world. Collaborating with some of these will be our next step to improve even further.
With more and more people choosing coworking spaces, these flexible workspaces have become increasingly popular, so picking the right one can be overwhelming.
Whether you’re a freelancer, entrepreneur, start-up business, or company employee, Cheltenham boasts a range of private offices and desk spaces for you to choose from. What matters most to you – free quality coffee, dog-friendly spaces, private parking, or public transport links?
The Workplace offers a mix of the professional and comfortable, featuring contemporary open-plan spaces as well as cosy booths. The Workplace is situated in leafy Montpellier, with a variety of independent shops and cafes.
Opened in 2024, this cyber-oriented coworking space was created in collaboration with Cheltenham Borough Council.
If you prefer a more casual vibe with access to a gastropub downstairs, then Dodo Works is a great option.
Blending the corporate feel of the office with the laid-back atmosphere of a café, Clockwise spans three floors and offers a ‘Club Lounge’ for members to work in. Perfect for connecting with other coworkers!
Do you need 24/7 access?
Members are granted full-time access thanks to our clever virtual key app, Kisi.
How many days would you like to come in per month?
We have the largest variation of part-time plans: 4, 8, or 12 days per month including ad hoc day passes, and full-time contracts. No other coworking facility in Cheltenham offers this.
Do you need flexibility? E.g. certain months require more/less/no access.
There’s no notice period – each membership can be switched, paused, or cancelled on a monthly basis.
Is The Workplace fully equipped?
You just need to bring your laptop. Every desk has a monitor and charging point. We have lots of spare items so if you forget something we can most likely get you sorted!
You certainly won’t have to bring your own milk or teabags either. Our kitchen is fully fitted and stocked, with Ritual coffee beans and Clipper teas all included, plus the option to purchase from our tuck shop too.
Would you like to have access to multiple locations?
We have two sites in Cheltenham: the town centre or prestigious Montpellier. As a Nomad you can book either space according to your diary.
Do prices include VAT?
All prices are inclusive of VAT! We are totally transparent and won’t give any vague descriptions such as ‘prices starting from…’
Do you need a meeting room for the day?
We have several meeting rooms in both locations, bookable by members and non-members. They include secure, superfast Wi-Fi and unlimited hot drinks as standard, most have large-screen TVs and whiteboards.
Want to book online with the click of a button?
Our easy-to-use system includes a floorplan helps you choose a specific desk. There is also an app version for members to install.
A private office for you and your team?
We have a selection of private offices available in Montpellier. Our serviced offices include absolutely everything you need to work efficiently – all you need is your laptop. Our flexi plans allow you to book by the day or the month.
Would you like to bring your dog?
We’d love to meet your canine coworkers!
Get in touch here or call us on 07850237799.
Happy Halloween!
We have never been big on Halloween decorations before, but this year we turned pumpkin decorating into a social affair…
Yesterday afternoon our members at Star Lodge got stuck in with pumpkin fun – without all the guts! To keep our bamboo tables in one piece we opted for the paintbrush instead of the carving knife.
Social events are a regular occurrence at The Workplace with our wellbeing boardgame Friday being well-attended. But painting definitely lends itself to more artistic freedom so it was fantastic to watch people’s designs come to life and not be ruined by a slip of the blade, which always seems to happen.
Although The Workplace hosts many cyber security experts and tech professionals, we are clearly still a creative community!
If you have never tried this, it’s definitely a lot of fun. Some of the team suggested it would be even better with glow-in-the-dark paints, which would be interesting to see.
Let us know how you’ve decorated during spooky season…
Sustainability has been a key part of who we are since day one. This is much more than simply turning some lights off, or recycling the occasional plastic cup. From the design and sourcing of our office furnishings, to the way we think about our energy use and waste – sustainability plays a vital part in how we operate on every single day. Here is what we do:
Office furnishings:
Why is our office furniture so sustainable? Well, the answer is actually really simple. It’s all about going back to basics and saying no to cheap, mass-produced furnishings. Our furniture is built to last and created with solid, natural materials wherever possible. For example, our outdoor benches are simply solid hardwood, coated with oil-based varnish. As you can see below, these sit above the old radiators from the building renovations – meaning they look great and nothing has been wasted!
Inside is a similar story. We build our desk tops from solid bamboo with oil-based coating which means that they are sturdy and will last an incredibly long time. However, if any do eventually need to be disposed of, they will fully decompose because they are entirely natural.
Of course, not everything can be made from wood and as good as it is for desks and benches – you probably wouldn’t appreciate a wooden office chair! Our chairs are supplied by Herman Miller who have a world leading sustainability program. The chairs are made from primarily recycled plastics, much of which has been collected from the ocean. If parts do break, they are individually replaceable which of course reduces waste and means that we don’t need to dispose of entire chairs.
Office Supplies:
Our office is always stocked up with a range of items for our members. Little changes in shopping habits can make really important differences which is why we buy from responsible companies and shop locally wherever possible.
We source our freshly roasted gourmet coffee from Ritual Coffee Co. Not only is this sourced in a socially responsible way from small scale farmers and co-operatives across the world – but the coffee is roasted just one mile away from our Star Lodge offices.
Similarly, we source our milk from Cotteswold Dairy who are based only 2.5 miles away from our town centre offices. Again, they have an exciting sustainability policy which ensures that our milk is supplied by red tractor approved farms which are generally within a 30 mile radius –reducing the need for long distance transport whilst supporting nearby businesses and farmers.
Some items simply can’t be supplied by local businesses. Even when this is the case, we check sustainability policies and ensure what we buy is organic or recyclable wherever possible. Here, small choices such as buying unbleached teabags, or paper hand towels from FSC approved suppliers can make all the difference.
On an even smaller scale, we compost all of our food waste and our members recycle food packaging – further reducing our landfill waste.
We are lucky that our two sites, Star Lodge and Frogmore House are both very bright, well adapted buildings. Star Lodge features a modern coworking area which is primarily glass fronted. This lets in lots of natural light and means that – along with energy saving LED bulbs – we can keep electricity usage to a minimum.
The Glass House at Star Lodge also features a sedum roof. This increases biodiversity whilst reducing our heating and cooling needs because the plants help to provide a natural insulation barrier. Perhaps most importantly – it provides a great place for squirrels to play!
When we do need to keep the building chilled or heated, we primarily use heat source air pumps through the air con units. These are much more efficient than using radiators and other more traditional ways of heating the building.
Getting to work:
Making it easier to get to our offices in sustainable ways really benefits our members. We are located in Cheltenham Town Centre, so most of our members from the town will walk or cycle in. We provide secure, CCTV monitored bike racks – and a private shower to ensure cycling to work is a viable option.
For those who drive, there’s the option of a PodPoint charger to make it easier for members who own electric cars.
Conclusion:
We think that the small choices we make are just as important as the bigger decisions. By considering sustainability in everything we do, it’s possible to reduce our impact on the environment whilst also encouraging our members to do the same.
Thinking about sustainability also makes our coworking and offices nice places to be – natural light, greenery and solid wood furniture creates a really enjoyable space to work in – and it certainly seems to keep our members happy!
Sean: Can you describe what your remote office space in Cheltenham is like, literally what it’s like inside and whereabouts in Cheltenham it is?
Claire: We’ve got a couple of spaces – one of them is based in the town centre and another much bigger one in Montpellier, so we are really close to the centre of everything. We do coworking spaces and have about fifty desks that people just hire by the day. Or lots of members come in monthly for a set number of days to run their businesses. We also have some private offices, virtual offices, and meeting spaces.
S: So, there’s a variety of things there. What are you seeing in particular? What services are you seeing have an increase this week?
C: It’s just the daily passes for coworking. People who have never been into coworking before are finding that they suddenly need to work from home and might not have the facilities. They may have children at home, so they are booking in the night before and coming in the morning to have a desk for the day.
S: Are people literally doing a bit of Googling the night before? Doing a classic ‘office space Cheltenham’ Google and then you pop up, or are these relationships you’ve had with businesses before, where they are looking to start using that a bit more frequently?
C: When I’ve spoken to them, they’ve been saying it has been searching for hot desks and coworking desks on Google and up we pop. We’re the only ones who offer day passes so they’re booking at 10 o’clock at night and coming in at 8 o’clock in the morning.
S: And do you have a bit of a game plan for a week like this to try and entice people to keep doing that – is that your thinking?
C: Yes, we think it’s great for anybody to find out about coworking. Especially since there are so many industries that don’t think they can cowork who come in and then they actually stay. We had some people who came in yesterday just for the day and by the afternoon they had booked permanent desks and will be coming in every month. They were saying ‘why would we commute to London everyday when this is nicer and easier?’
S: Amazing how quickly these things can change. Do you know who ends up paying for that? Are the workers themselves coughing up for it or are they able to expense it back to their business so that they are not actually having increased costs of having an office?
C: I think it is roughly fifty-fifty. We send invoices directly to businesses so lots of them are expensing. But a lot of people are actually finding that – though they thought the idea of working from home is great and they’ve agreed to it – they’re going stir crazy and just pay for it themselves because they are so much more productive here.
S: Right, so it’s not just a step away from headquarters – this is a step away from the working from home that some people have done?
C: Totally. The kind of demographics of the people we have in, almost all have office space at home but they’re choosing not to use it five days a week if that’s what their job is asking them to do. It works much better for them to come in about two days a week and break the week up.
S: And are there other demographics? Do you spot trends of the type of person coming in to your workspaces?
C: The people that come in are so varied. The only thing that I’ve managed to narrow down is that they are all very intelligent. We have writers, authors, people that work for newspapers, we get the typical cyber people – as you would expect in Cheltenham – but we also get lawyers, recruitment consultants, and software engineers. The thing they have in common, among the variety of jobs, is that they’re really bright and they’re motivated.
S: Interesting. What consequences do you see of that when you have a bunch of intelligent, hard-working people of Cheltenham from various sectors all in the same space?
C: It works brilliantly because people who come in would normally be going to their own office and only speaking to people from their own industry. Instead, they are coming in and talking to people they would never normally meet in their work environment. So, we’ve got people that are doing cyber things talking to people working in defence who are talking to recruiters and accountants. They wouldn’t normally every come across these people so there are some really interesting conversations that go on in the kitchen here.
S: Fascinating stuff, Claire. Thank you for a bit of insight for us to see how it is affecting people’s work this week. Potentially, could this be another jolt for many people around the country to work in a bit of a different way? This will no doubt add to the debate about whether employers want us all back into offices as many days a week as possible. Does it make any difference to be based at headquarters or in a remote office space somewhere?
The Workplace is voted the Best Business Mailbox Service in Gloucestershire!
(U.K. Enterprise Awards 2021)
With virtual membership, you can benefit from 24-hour access to your own mailbox. The area is covered by CCTV for maximum security and is available at both of our Cheltenham offices. And for an extra £5 per month your company can be registered with Companies House to either of our addresses.
Written by Georgie Robinson, 15, who spent the week with us for her work experience.
Today, more people are working from home than ever before. Coronavirus has meant that many people who previously worked in an office environment are now spending their days cooped up at home in front of a computer screen. This raises the question: Is it healthy to spend that much time inside?
Studies have shown that the average desk-based employee can spend 70% of their day indoors on a computer, which can have huge consequences on both mental and physical health, and increases the chances of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Not to mention, spending too much time indoors can impact your ability to focus, and spending just twenty minutes in the open air does the same thing as one cup of coffee, just without any of the less-welcome side effects!
Staring at a computer screen for hours without a break can lead to bad eyesight, back pains and much more. So, taking regular breaks to look away from your screen is vital for your health. While working inside, there is only so much you can look at. But outside, seeing different objects in nature from a distance can relax your eye muscles and encourage you to look away more often.
Trees, natural light, and fresh air are all said to have a positive impact on mental wellbeing, which is why having an outdoor space to work is so beneficial. You may be worried that spending time outdoors could result in doing less work, but nature actually helps relieve stress and prevents distractions. This results in more productivity and fewer sick leaves.
The Workplace provides outdoor workspaces and desks with lots of natural light, so even if working outside isn’t your cup of tea, you can still have access to sunlight and nature. It is scientifically proven that walking among trees can improve your short-term memory by 20%, so being situated near Montpellier Park also makes it easy to go for a stroll and clear your head during breaks.
Does your current Workplace offer a healthy work-life balance? Are you sitting comfortably, surrounded by inspiring people, with variety and flexibility?
Whether you belong to a multi-national team or are self-employed, work better in the morning or late at night, need an office space daily, or just once, our spaces are open to all.
Since 2018, The Workplace has been operating as a coworking service for a growing number of local and international members. We saw start-up businesses bloom, and the most unlikely collaborations become success stories.
Overflowing with creativity and entrepreneurship, The Workplace has recently opened a larger site at the Star Lodge in Montpellier. Having a space in the centre of town encapsulated the social buzz of coworking, a work style that overlooks a host of different people from all business backgrounds.
Our newest location contains a wider selection of coworking spaces, including open-plan offices, individual hideaways, and group rooms. The building is much like an amplified version of the original Workplace, with both shared and private spaces. In addition, we offer two spacious conference rooms, an upgrade from the Frogmore site’s single meeting room.
Our Montpellier site has car parking facilities, along with bike/scooter stands to suit your travel preferences. Alongside this, we have shared amenities, including a kitchen space as well as a bathroom complete with shower facilities.
Our coworking offices are a welcome alternative if you are keen to convert from a crowded strip-lit office or from a wobbly kitchen table. The Workplace introduces a mindful work-life balance, with high-quality facilities and ergonomically efficient furnishings to ensure members’ comfort. Here, your office space prioritises your physical and mental well-being and accommodates individual needs.
Several months ago (Covid intervened) I was interviewed, along with some of our fabulous members, by Harrison Clark Rickerbys, to help inform their research into the future of workspaces.
The pandemic has appeared to have amplified their findings; people want flexibility to work from home, but also need to be around others. How can employers improve their work environments to to make them appeal more to workers? https://www.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:6768545135740366848