In order to help the “innocent” office space seeker find his or her way through the maze of serviced office terminology, I’ve put together this glossary of terms. I hope you find it helpful…

Serviced Office

A group of offices or large office building in a suburban office park or a central business district that offer furnished offices and workstations. Executive suites are normally fully furnished and come with additional services such as a reception, security, administrative/secretarial support, meeting and conference rooms, video conferencing, etc. This term is mostly used in the UK

Executive suite

Same as a serviced office. Used in the US despite its ambiguity of being also the term that refers to certain types of hotel rooms.

Office Suite

Same as a serviced office. Used in the US despite its ambiguity of being also the term that refers to non-serviced offices.

Busines Center

Same as a serviced office. Used in the US despite its ambiguity of being also the term that refers to certain types of areas dedicated to conducting business in airports or hotels

Executive Office

Same as a serviced office. Used in the US despite its ambiguity of being also the term that refers to government offices.

Flexible Terms

Flexible terms usually means a tenant can move into an office just a few days or weeks after signing an simple agreement with terms as short as a few days or as long as a few years. This is in contrast to typical inflexible multi-year (often 10 years) leases for traditional commercial office space.

Furnished Office

Offices that come furnished with desks, credenza and other standard office furniture and equipment. The extent to which the office is furnished will depend on the location.

Hot Desking

When a workstation is used by different people at various times. These may be people employed by the same company (such as sales reps or job sharers) or the workstation may be let out to another company for use by their employees (such as when a company has a single employee in a new location).

Workstation

Typically a workstation is a desk with phone and internet. Often it can be more furniture. The term is often used to refer to space required for a single person, i.e., an office can have multiple workstations.

Lease Agreement

A more structured and involved document than the typical executive suite license agreement, lease agreements usually require the assistance of a real estate agent and are typically signed for periods of three years or longer.

License Agreement

Simple and more flexible than a traditional lease agreement, a license is often used for short periods of time making them an ideal solution for executive office space.

Managed Office

Managed office space typically has fewer options and services than serviced office space. Managed offices are also usually available to lease on shorter and more flexible terms than conventional office space.

Open Plan Offices

Offices that are not divided by floor to ceiling walls, often including break out rooms and meeting areas. Sometimes these types of office will have cubicles or other dividers.

Shared Office Space

An office shared by two or more businesses. This is an option often chosen by new start ups as well as companies looking to expand into another location but not yet ready to set up a full team there. Often there will be some shared services such as administrative, maintenance and janitorial.

Virtual Office

A virtual office service can be as simple as a mail box/address or as comprehensive as meeting rooms, message taking, secretarial services, administration and accounting as well as other business support services.

Remote Receptionist

Offered as part of a virtual office, remote receptionists answer phones on behalf of businesses and take messages or forward calls as appropriate. Often they are simply receptionists. Often they do more (see remote assistant below)

Remote Assistant

Offered less often as part of a virtual office, a remote assistant does everything a remote receptionist does, plus more. They may organize meetings, arrange business travel, light clerical work, etc. Often this term is mistakenly interchanged with remote receptionist, but should not be. Companies who provide remote assitants include Davinci Virtual and Intelligent Office.

Office Hoteling

Office space plan to house more people in less space by eliminating permanent offices for many employees. Allows organizations to reduce space costs by relying on technology to create the appearance of a permanent office.

Telecommuting

A class of mobile professionals who are equipped to work out of their house, cars, on-site at client workplace, or even at Starbuck’s.