Part 1: Choosing the Right Operator
This article builds on the earlier Deskonomy post on choosing the right office model—coworking spaces, managed offices, or traditional leases. If you’ve read that article, taken its arguments seriously, and arrived at a conclusion that fits your organization, the next question is an entirely practical one: “How do you actually choose the right asset, operator, or building for your team?“
This is where many decisions go wrong. Not because the model was incorrect, but because the execution was weak. The sections below walk through this decision progressively, starting with the simplest use cases and moving toward more complex ones. Before diving into specific scenarios, however, there are two filters that apply universally, regardless of whether you are a solo freelancer or a large enterprise
The 2 Universal Filters
The first is location.
You should have a reasonably clear idea of where you want to be. Location affects commute times, access to public transport, hiring flexibility, and even how clients perceive you. Being vague on location dramatically increases the number of options you must evaluate and makes decision-making unnecessarily tiring.
The second is budget.
This does not mean choosing the cheapest option. It means understanding what you are comfortable paying, whether there is room to stretch, and how much importance you place on flexibility versus cost certainty.
Once location and budget are broadly defined, the remaining decisions become far more manageable. Let’s move on, assuming you know where you want to be and how much you want to pay.
Choosing an Operator-Driven Model
If you have chosen an operator-driven model, which could mean coworking spaces, flexible seating, or plug-and-play private offices or even GCCs or Enterprise custom built solutions, it is important to recognize that you are not merely choosing a physical space. You are choosing an operating partner who will influence your daily experience in ways that are often invisible on day one but painfully obvious six months later.
One of the first warning signs to watch for is ultra-low pricing:
If an operator is offering space at a price significantly lower than most others in the same micro-market, that gap almost always has an explanation. In some cases, the explanation is a much higher seat density, which leads to noise, crowding, overused meeting rooms, and pressure on common infrastructure. In others, it may be an older building with weaker amenities, limited parking, or outdated systems. Sometimes, the space standards themselves are lower than average.
There is also a more subtle risk: operators who price aggressively using investor capital to win market share. While this may look attractive in the short term, it can introduce instability if funding conditions or investor priorities change. Your office should not become collateral damage in someone else’s growth experiment.
Low pricing is not inherently bad, but it must be understood clearly and accepted consciously.
Another critical step is reference checking:
Speak to people who currently work from the space if you can, and if possible, to those who have exited. Online reviews can help, but they should be read for patterns rather than isolated complaints. A consistent theme of delayed security deposit refunds or unresolved service issues is far more telling than a single negative review.
It is also worth remembering that size and brand recognition do not automatically translate into reliability. In many cases, smaller local operators provide better service precisely because decision-makers are closer to the ground. Escalations tend to be faster, accountability clearer, and service quality more consistent when management attention is direct rather than institutional.
Transparency is another strong predictor of future experience:
Well-run operators are generally clear about what is included in their fees, what costs extra, and how decisions are made. Poorly run ones often rely on vague agreement language, unclear inclusions, and ambiguous deduction clauses. Before signing, examine whether the operator is open about security deposit refunds, willing to explain past issues, and comfortable sharing their standard operating procedures for housekeeping, security, and utilities. Hesitation here usually signals friction later.
What Changes by Team Size
For freelancers and very small teams:
flexibility is usually the overriding concern. Longer lock-ins and higher deposits may unlock marginally better commercials, but they also increase risk. Small teams benefit more from shorter tenures, minimal lock-ins, and lower deposits, even if the monthly price is slightly higher. Agreements can always be renewed; bad lock-ins are much harder to escape.
It is also important to remember that listed prices on operator or aggregator websites are almost always negotiable. Discounts of 20–25 percent are not uncommon, particularly for hotdesks and coworking memberships.
PRO-TIP: Most operators reserve certain parts of their space—often less configurable areas near common zones—for coworking users. Because sales teams typically focus on closing larger private-office deals, they are often far more flexible when dealing with freelancers and small teams. That flexibility can and should be used.
As teams grow and move into private offices:
Stability becomes increasingly important. At this stage, you should look beyond flexibility and assess how robust the underlying systems are. Redundancy in power and internet, fire and life-safety preparedness, and the ability to scale up or down without relocating all matter. Your team is now embedded in the ecosystem created by the operator, and weaknesses in that ecosystem will surface quickly.
For large teams, customized offices, or GCC-scale operations:
The frame of reference changes entirely. At this level, cost is only one variable. A wrong decision can lead not just to inconvenience, but to financial loss, operational disruption, and reputational damage. Diligence must therefore be deeper and more structured. You should evaluate the operator’s track record with similarly sized clients and understand the contractual relationship between the operator and the landlord, including how much tenure runway exists and what termination risks might affect you as a sub-lessee. In very large deals, tripartite agreements may be worth exploring to protect against operator default.
At this scale, it is also essential to examine the status of annual maintenance contracts for critical systems such as fire safety, power backup, HVAC, IT infrastructure, and security. Statutory approvals, ESG alignment (where relevant), parking availability, expansion optionality, and IT independence all become first-order considerations rather than afterthoughts.
Contracts should be customized and reviewed carefully, with enforceable service levels and clearly defined exit rights.
PRO-TIP: The guiding principle here is simple: the more detail you capture upfront, the easier it will be to resolve issues later. This includes documenting housekeeping standards, redundancy timings, usage-based charges, representations and warranties, indemnities, access rights, confidentiality obligations, repair timelines, and even practical details such as the number and location of LAN and electrical points per workstation. Provisioning for spare capacity is not overengineering, it is operational resilience.
While CAD drawings are standard for customized spaces, supplementing them with physical floor markings often helps teams visualize layouts more realistically and identify issues that do not appear on screen.
| Area | What to Evaluate | Why It Matters |
| Pricing | Alignment with market norms | Extreme underpricing often signals hidden compromises |
| Seat Density | Space per person, noise levels | Directly impacts comfort and productivity |
| Building Quality | Age, amenities, parking | Affects reliability and daily experience |
| Location Access | Public transport, last-mile | Influences hiring and retention |
| Access Hours | Business hours vs 24×7 | Critical for flexibility and global teams |
| Operator Track Record | Current and exited clients | Best predictor of future experience |
| Transparency | Inclusions, exclusions, SOPs | Reduces disputes and surprises |
| Agreements | Lock-ins, tenure, exits | Determines flexibility and risk |
| Security Deposit | Amount and refund terms | Common source of conflict |
| SLAs | Service quality and uptime | Accountability mechanism |
| Redundancy | Power, internet, safety | Business continuity |
| Expansion Flexibility | Ability to scale | Avoids forced relocations |
| Customization Costs | Market benchmarking | Prevents overruns |
| Governance | Compliance and ESG | Reputation and audit readiness |
IIf you’ve concluded that an operator-led model isn’t the right fit for your organization and that a traditional lease makes more sense, we’ll cover that path in detail in the next article: Part 2 of Choosing the Right Office Asset.
That article will focus specifically on traditional leases: the diligence required, the risks that are easy to underestimate, and the structural decisions that tend to have long-term consequences.
At the end of Part 2, we’ll also share a practical, downloadable spreadsheet that you can use to systematically work through your decision-making process. This will include key diligence checkpoints, AMCs to verify, important agreement constructs to watch for, and clear checklists for both managed spaces and traditional leases.
As a preview of what’s coming next on Deskonomy, we’ll also be publishing a dedicated series on agreements and negotiations—what teams routinely miss, where risk tends to hide, and how contractual decisions tie back directly into your workspace and cost decisions. These pieces are designed to plug directly into the decision framework outlined in this series.