Fostering Entrepreneurship: Coworking at Forge Works Enterprise Centre

Earlier this week, we caught up with Laura Tannian, Enterprise Development Manager for the Burren Lowlands, to learn more about how their Forge Works enterprise and co-working centre is supporting the needs of job-seekers in the community. 

Forge Works is a relatively new enterprise centre located in Gort town. It received funding from the Regional Enterprise Development Fund, administered by Enterprise Ireland. They received a grant of €182,786, with part of that sum to be used to renovate a building into a modern office space. 

Apart from a renovation project, Laura's role as manager of the enterprise centre was created and funded by the grant, with provisions also made to invite business consultants to the area and for promotional activities, such as building the Forge Works website. 

Coworking at Forge Works

The brand new, uber-modern enterprise centre now occupies a building that used to house a veterinarian clinic. Thanks to Laura's direction, Forge Works became one of the first enterprise centres in Ireland to have closed workspaces, a state-of-the-art air-filtration system in every room, and a free-standing thermometer at the door. 'We were lucky,' she says, 'because we moved with what was happening with Covid. While everybody else adapted their buildings to it, we've actually purposely built our centre around Covid.'

Some of the modern, fully-equipped offices available for rent at Forge Works

The centre has nine fully equipped private offices to let by the day, week, or month. Utilities and amenities such as the use of a kitchenette, high-speed broadband, and print, copy and shredding facilities are included in the rent. Find out more about their prices on their website.

The centre also has plenty of parking space and is conveniently located near Supervalu and the town centre.

With most of the town now having access to fibre broadband, including the centre, it's clear that Forge Works is more than just the sum of its facilities. Unlike many other coworking centres that are open plan, remote workers at Forge Works can find quiet, peaceful and private spaces to focus on their work away from distractions (or lack of space) at home. Meanwhile, common areas like the kitchenette give workers a chance to catch up and unwind in the company of locals, if they so wish. 

Laura points out that remote work existed long before the pandemic came along, and only continues to grow in popularity. 'It's bringing the whole world into one small place,' she says. 'A lot of companies are offering their employees a hybrid, where you can use the office, stay at home, or use an enterprise centre.'

World-leading professional services provider, PwC, comes to mind. They're offering employees a hybrid working model that asks them to be in the office 2-3 days a week, depending on workloads or client demands. 

'Some 100% remote companies do it really well,' Laura adds. 'People's work is more project-based, rather than micro-managed. They'll only ask you to be online for certain times of the day, because they know that you need to deep dive and work on your project, so you can't be answering emails and getting distracted all the time. They also know that if you're trying to figure out a problem, it's not sitting at the computer that you might do it, it might be while you're out having a walk, or folding laundry... so they give you that freedom and all they really want is the result of the project at the end of it.'

Places like Forge Works may give prospective remote workers the chance to have it all: to live locally, to work for a company that is 100% remote (through opportunities made available with their training courses), and to share a space with like-minded people or focus more deeply on their work. Either way, it's a win-win for the whole community. 

Find out more about the Forge Works Enterprise Centre on their website and keep up to date with everything that's happening, including new training courses, by downloading the Xplore Local app from the Apple and Play stores.