What do you miss about not being an employee? Holiday and sick pay? Dress down Friday? Team building away days? 

For most self-employed people being your own boss (having flexibility to work the hours you want, potentially earning more than you would as an employee) more than outweighs the benefits that you lose. However, if you're a sole trader working for yourself you may miss some of the cultural aspects of being a salaried employee. 

That's where SiGNAL can help! Our coworking, desk hire and office space gives you all the benefits of having a workplace without a boss breathing down your neck. We've also introduced Beer Fridays if you miss socialising with colleagues, and coming up at the SiGNAL BiZHUB we've even got a team building event for the self-employed!

Last year, Mark Alcock from Rhythmworks gave us a taste of his Taiko Drumming team building workshops. The session focused on the importance of commitment, awareness, support, trust and, most importantly, having fun with big drums!

Normally Mark runs these workshops for teams in corporates and other organisations. So why attend one with a group of different small business owners? Apart from being an enjoyable way to spend a morning these sessions teach you a lot about yourself and how you interact with other people. They can help you to communicate with others more effectively (whether they're clients, suppliers or employees), and also build stronger professional relationships with other attendees. Mark hosted a similar workshop for the Farnham Hub, and those that took part found it a fantastic experience even though they don't work with each day-in-day-out. 

Here's what they got up to!

See, you don't have to miss out of team building exercises when you're self-employed!

If you're working from home you may miss other positive aspects of office culture. That's where SiGNAL steps in. Come and use our free coworking space so you can work alongside other self-employed people. Make it a Friday and at 4pm we down tools and enjoy a beer or soft drink and catch up with each other. It's a great way to end the working week and the connections you make with other coworkers and SiGNAL Village residents could turn into a profitable business relationship.

Coworking at SiGNAL is free ??" just turn up Monday ??" Friday, 9am to 5pm. See you soon!