Hub-and-spoke offices: how Indian hybrid teams are using coworking

Many Indian companies have settled into hybrid work: some days in the office, some days elsewhere. That raises a practical question. If people come to the main office only a few days a week, and spend the rest at home with patchy internet or long commutes, is one central office still the best set-up? The hub-and-spoke model is one answer. It keeps a main office, the hub, for collaboration and adds smaller workspaces, the spokes, closer to where people live. Coworking spaces are a natural fit for the spokes.

How the model works

• The hub is your main office. It hosts team days, leadership, client visits, training and anything that needs the whole team in one place.
• The spokes are smaller workspaces in other parts of the city, or in other cities. People use them on days they do not need to be at the hub.
• Home remains an option for those who prefer it and can work well there.

In a large metro, a hub might sit in a central business district while spokes sit in suburbs where many employees live. In Bangalore, for instance, a team might keep a hub in one tech corridor and offer spoke desks in a coworking space on the other side of the city.

When it fits

• Your team is spread across a large city, and commutes to the hub are long.
• People struggle to work from home because of space, noise or power issues.
• You are hiring outside your hub city and want to give new hires a proper place to work.
• Your hub is under-used on most days but full on team days.

It fits less well if your work depends on everyone being together every day, or if the team is small and lives close to the hub.

Setting it up step by step

1. Collect data. Where do people live? How long do they commute? How many days a week do they actually come in? Anonymous surveys and badge data help.
2. Define the hub's job. Decide which activities must happen at the hub, and size it for those, not for everyone at once on an ordinary day.
3. Pick spoke locations near clusters of homes and good transport. Our article on choosing a space by commute helps here.
4. Choose the spoke format. Dedicated desks for regular users, hot desks or day passes for occasional ones, a small cabin if a team clusters in one area.
5. Agree a policy. Who can use spokes, how often, how bookings work, and what is expected on hub days.
6. Pilot one or two spokes for a few months before rolling out more.

Choosing spoke spaces

Costs to track

Do not assume hub-and-spoke saves or costs money; measure it with your own numbers:

• Hub cost before and after any resizing.
• Spoke seats or passes, plus add-ons like meeting rooms.
• Travel allowances and commute reimbursements.
• Time saved on commutes, which you can estimate from your survey.
• Attendance and spoke utilisation each month.

If spoke seats sit empty, switch them to passes. If they are always full, add seats.

Keeping the team connected

• Fix regular hub days for each team so people know when they will see colleagues.
• Make meeting rooms at the hub suitable for hybrid calls, with good cameras and microphones.
• Avoid creating a two-tier culture where hub regulars get more attention. Share decisions and updates in writing.
• Rotate leadership visits to spokes now and then.

Common pitfalls

• Spokes nobody uses. Usually the location was chosen around a manager's home rather than the team's. Use commute data, not assumptions.
• A hub that never shrinks. If the hub stays the same size, spokes add cost without saving any.
• Unclear rules. If people do not know whether they are expected at the hub, they will either all come on the same day or never come.
• Too many operators. Each extra contract adds invoices, access processes and support contacts. Where possible, consolidate.

Security and IT

Spoke users work on shared networks. Make sure laptops are encrypted, VPN or zero-trust access is in place, screens lock automatically and staff know not to leave devices unattended. Ask each operator about network isolation and guest access policies.

Beyond one city

The same model works across cities: a hub in your headquarters city and spokes, or a satellite office, where you have clusters of staff or clients. Coworks lists spaces across 40 cities on the coworking spaces in India page. For multi-location requirements, the enterprise page explains how to share a brief covering several cities at once.