Your Office Fitout Guide: Part One
In this guide we share with you everything you need to know within the 3 main steps for starting the journey towards improving your workplace.
1. Office Refurbishment vs Office Relocation
Should I stay or should I go is usually the first question businesses ask when looking to enhance their working environment. Whether you employ 10 or 200 people, deciding whether to relocate offices or simply refurbish your existing space is a big decision for any employer to make.
There are a lot of factors to consider including, costs, employee disruption, location accessibility for both staff and clients, working needs and future business growth. So, to help you with this decision lets take a look both options in more detail as well as the process involved.
An office refurbishment is essentially updating, rethinking and redesigning the existing space to breathe a new lease of life into it and ensure it works for your business and people.
Relocating means moving your business to a new space in a more suited location that can better support your working needs and promote future business growth.
There is no right or wrong answer, it is all a matter of what works best for your business now and in the future. Both will enable you to create a work space that actually works, by giving you the opportunity to identify how your space can improve employee productivity, enhance efficiency and reinforce your company’s purpose and values.
Before you make a decision you need to ask yourself the following questions:
- Does your existing office support your future growth plans?
- Or have you already out grown the space and therefore moving will mean your business can continue to grow and progress as planned in the near future?
- Are you paying too much for your existing space and would be better off relocating somewhere new at a reduced cost?
- Is location restricting your business in anyway so you are looking to relocate somewhere that is better suited to your industry, employees and clients?
- Is your existing space tech savvy or do you need to upgrade your systems to ensure your business is not left behind?
- Are you offering a state of the art product or service, but operating from a dated office so need to give it a revamp to ensure it lives up to client expectations?
2. Choosing an internal office project leader
Whatever option you decide is best for your business, the next step is to choose an internal project leader to manage the project from start to finish. It is important that this person knows the business inside out and is comfortable in taking a lead role in handling the day to day issues associated with running a large project for a team of people. Below are our top tips of what to look for when considering your project leader:
- Strong ambassador for your business – They need to be someone who knows the business inside out and can express this to a fitout partner to ensure the company gets a workplace that not only works, but reinforces your brand values and message.
- People focused – Can work closely with your employees to identify what they want from the new space and how it can be used as a tool to improve their engagement and performance levels.
- Enthusiastic – They need to be someone who is fully on board with the refurbishment or relocation. They need to be able to get the team excited about this new chapter and ensure that energy levels stay high, even when faced with challenging situations.
- Understanding team responsibilities – They need to be someone who is embedded into the company and understands the strengths and weaknesses of the team / departments so they can utilise the different skillsets when required.
- Communication and problem solving skills – Of course with the help of a fitout firm and property agent if moving, this journey should be as smooth and seamless as possible. However, there will of course be the odd issue or change that may occur along the way, so the project leader needs to be someone who is able to communicate to all parties involved and is quick on their feet with getting problems solved with as little stress as possible.
3. Identify your pain points and the solutions required
Once you have your internal project leader, you then need to understand what type of space and working areas your business and people actually require. It is at this stage that you should ask yourself ‘why you want to improve your workplace’. This should give you an in depth understanding of what is working and what needs changing / improving. Once you have established these factors, you can then understand what your business requires from your new workspace in order to enhance your overall business performance.
Your workplace has to hold a purpose for your business and people. It needs to be functional and flexible in supporting your current and future goals. This is the stage where you need to understand what is important to your employees roles and work life, to ensure the space can bring out the best in them. Your clients have expectations too, and like your services your workplace needs to meet these. Whether your a creative company providing an innovative service, or a regal business offering high end quality products – your office needs to reflect this. Ask yourself if your space is aligned to your company promises and message. If not, what changes are required to ensure it is?
Maybe you need more meeting rooms and private areas for your clients and partners to be more present and involved? Or maybe you need less open plan space and more quiet zones for your team to carry out their day to day tasks to the best of their ability? Or is it a matter of mixing the different teams and departments throughout the open plan areas so they can bring the best out of one another?
Every business is different and this stage is crucial to understanding your unique requirements.
In part two we will be touching on how to write your office design brief, finding the perfect fitout partner and choosing the right location for your business and people.
If you have any questions on how to improve your workspace, or just need some help in understanding what option would be best for your business, get in touch! We would love to understand your current and future business objectives to see how we can help.