What is Office Decentralisation? An Introduction of the Hub-and-Spoke Model

Office decentralisation reduces the reliance on a single headquarters for a company, provides teams with accessible, flexible, and convenient places to work in the form of smaller offices or co-working spaces, and cuts down on employees’ commute times. With most companies going through a mass ‘work-from-home’ experience in the past year due to the global pandemic, for the majority it was mostly positive and now companies are rethinking their office spaces and workplace formats. Employers are increasingly looking towards flexible workplace solutions for their teams.

The new term ‘hub-and-spoke model’ is becoming more and more popular with large organisations, where the organisation has a central headquarters, as well as smaller ‘satellite’ offices or co-working locations. A satellite office is an additional location of a larger company that is physically separate from the business’s main (or first) office. Companies large and small are choosing to establish satellite offices in different areas, different cities, different regions, or different countries. The main office becomes less crowded and relied upon as employees work from the satellite office near their home on a remote basis.

Advantages of Office Decentralisation

The use of a hub-and-spoke model can help your company gain access to an entirely new talent pool. If your main office is in Dublin, it can be difficult to get the talent you need to move all the way across the country. With a satellite office, you can hire the right people for the job without making them travel to do it.

In connection with relocating, commute time is a very real issue that your employees face on a daily basis. Long commutes can negatively affect your team’s energy levels, focus, engagement and productivity. Establishing co-working spaces for your employees to work from with a provider like NoCo can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes for team members to get to work. That can translate to more work done, higher motivation, less conflict in the workplace, and a happier team.

A decentralized office also has a flatter organizational structure, which means communications can move more freely through the company without needing to be escalated and delegated repeatedly to reach the right person.

Disadvantages of Office Decentralisation

As a company grows, there comes a point where its founders can’t oversee everything, so they must give up a degree of control to business partners or employees. Like at any stage in a company’s expansion, the transition to a hub-and-spoke model means handing over more control to those you trust.

With a decentralized office, an organisation may encounter the issue of one office deciding on one approach and another manager wants to go a different way. Managers in a decentralized company are there to advocate for their own office, so knowing how to resolve conflict is crucial.

How NoCo and can help you decentralise

Whether your goal is to launch a satellite office or allow your employees to work in a convenient location closer to where they live, or to minimize the risk to your workers by de-densifying your existing office space, NoCo’s workspace network can help you to decentralize your organisation, with one monthly membership and ultimate flexibility.