Do you like working from home but your Internet connection is unreliable and you don’t have a decent office? Did you try to make your bedroom a workspace during the first confinement, without success? Since the end of January, a coworking space has been available free of charge to tenants of the 46 apartments in a residence located in Sotteville-lès-Rouen, in Normandy (76). “We have experienced three successive confinements and many tenants do not have an Internet connection to telecommute. We have a space, we might as well develop it“, explains Agnès Hugot, member of the executive committee of Polylogis, the social landlord.
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This space welcomes employees working from home as well as entrepreneurs or job seekers. “Tenants starting their businesses in IT appreciate having no fixed start-up costs. They also appreciate being able to come together and not be isolated when they start“, explains Agnès Hugot. Other tenants come to find help with their CVs.
A living space
«It is not only a physical space but a place of exchanges. Active tenants meet inactive people“, she defines. The lessor also wishes to make it a “living spacethanks in particular to students who give computer courses to tenants. In partnership with local associations, a specialist facilitator has been recruited to take charge of welcoming and supporting tenants.
This 30 square meter room, equipped with six workstations equipped with computers, printers and a high-speed internet connection, was dedicated to guarding activities. He had to be swallowed. “We equipped our employees with laptops so we had too many desktop computers. We brought them into the room and we just bought some tables, installed the fiber, and gave it a lick of paint.“, recounts Agnès Hugot. That is 5000 euros of investments.
The lessor wishes to broaden the audience for which this space is intended. “Employees of a start-up not staying in the residence come to work here.“. If the project generates enough enthusiasm, another room, 80 square meters, will also be transformed into a coworking space, not far from there. A similar program might see the light of day in Île-de-France.