Designing an office space for your business is essential. It helps foster brand awareness for your walk-in clients and significantly boosts staff morale, if done right! Whether you’re just planning to zhuzh up your current office space or planning to set up a new location using a private office room in a coworking environment, this blog is definitely for you! Read on to know how you can effectively create a space that’s welcoming to your clients and team members.
How to evaluate your office space needs?
Here are some fundamental factors worth evaluating:
A location that helps your business
The majority of companies should locate themselves near highways and public transit to attract employees since there is a strong likelihood that workers will not be able to afford to live in the immediate neighborhood. In addition, you need to consider the possible customers and investors in your business. It is to your advantage to make it as simple as possible for essential individuals to visit your workplace.
The Correct Dimension
The conventional starting point for well-organized workstations in the amount of office space necessary for Companies is 75 square feet per employee. Multiply it by the number of persons contributing to the project to get a starting point.
Depending on your individual needs, add whatever extra square footage you need (e.g., additional storage space, larger desks, etc.). Make sure you have enough space to handle future growth and aim to hit your occupancy limit roughly two-thirds of the way through your lease term.
Choosing a Theme
Ask yourself: what kind of impression are you hoping to provide them? What kind of an office would you have if you could create one of your dreams? Even if you can’t afford everything right now, there are various things you can do to show off your style on a budget.
Amenities in the common areas
What kinds of services and supplies would be helpful for your new business venture to have in the immediate area? Do you know of any coffee shops, printing companies, FedEx drop-off locations, or gyms in the area?
How to determine your office space budget?
While there isn’t a set method for figuring out how much budget your Company can allocate to office space, creating a working budget involves subtracting the costs of running your business from your estimated monthly cash flow. The following are some excellent starting points for reflection:
- • How much money do we now owe?
- • How much money may we expect to get each month?
- • What is our expected growth rate over the next six to twelve months?
Helpful Hint: Estimate high and low costs and income. After determining your budget, it will be possible to establish whether or not you can afford a privately rented office space.
Related article: Newest Office Spaces Trends on 2023
Designing Your New Office Space
Step 1: Begin designing with a focus on business objectives.
To begin, you will need to rethink your workplace, which will require you to analyze the jobs critical to your business and how an office may better serve the needs of those roles. Which places are vital to your work and your employees’ many responsibilities for your Company?
How can we achieve the most excellent possible mix of social meeting spaces (both formal and informal) and individual workstations?
Depending on the company, the answers to these questions will vary, which is why you need tools to help you tailor your workplace to meet the requirements specific to your business.
Is your organization often visited by clients and/or other visitors? A digital visitor management system may minimize the work required by your front-of-house personnel while maintaining exact statistics on visitor arrivals and departures.
You may also consider what rooms you’ll need to better accommodate visiting customers, both to help them feel at ease while at your office and to give areas where they can get their work done in between meetings. You’ll be able to host visiting customers more productively if you do this.
How many employees do you expect to be physically present in the office vs. working remotely on any given day? Is your physical location equipped with the necessary technological tools to promote communication and collaboration between the two kinds of employees? This is a crucial element to examine and keep in mind when determining the number and size of accessible meeting rooms.
There is no need for two persons to occupy a 12-person conference room to call into a virtual meeting with the rest of their team; smaller breakout rooms should be supplied with the same technology to allow video chats.
Step 2: Attend to the staff’s needs.
Not only can the right digital solutions be used for scheduling, booking, and guest administration, but they can also give data that can help you learn about staff and visitor behavior. What kinds of work environments are most popular among employees? Are all typical table chairs occupied, although single workstations have plenty of spare space? It’s feasible that reducing the number of cubicles and replacing them with more shared workstations will result in the more effective use of expensive office real estate.
If there are more employee check-ins than booked spaces, it is conceivable that employees are taking advantage of unstructured workspaces and setting up shop in the office coffee bar between meetings. Probably, employees are primarily using the workplace for in-person collaboration if days with high traffic are also days when meeting rooms are booked to capacity.
Do you expect a need for more specialized meeting spaces to accommodate such behaviors, and will the availability of extra meeting spaces motivate employees to come into the office more frequently?
Step 3: Be flexible!
The flexible workspace of the future is going to be everybody’s dream. As you plan for an office that will better support changing ways of working, you will likely begin the process by making immediate design updates based on what you already know about your Company’s specific requirements.
This will allow you to get things moving in the right direction. That is all well and good, but you need also be ready to continuously adjust the space as you learn about the behaviors of both employees and visitors.
The use of digital solutions for managing workspaces is a great chance to gather insights that, in turn, may lead to more effective use of your space, which can save time and money. A recent survey found that more than 76% of business executives believed that the epidemic helped them understand that the way they do business might be simplified due to the realization.
Over the past few years, we’ve gained a lot of knowledge about the factors that contribute to the desirability of an office, which means that certain investments are a sure bet. These include bringing in natural elements such as plants and daylight, creating more informal and communal areas, and providing a greater variety in the types of workspaces available. In light of this, you should go on with your plans to construct the new office space and finalize the contract with the sustainable design team as soon as possible.
Step 4: Always future-proof your design.
However, while making your budget, you should consider the possibility that you may wish to make some adjustments in the next year or two. You should also remember that substantial architectural or structural commitments may be tough to alter.
It could seem like a good idea right now to create a physical boundary between individual workplaces and communal areas, but in the future, you might find out that the large wall you erected to separate the lounge from the cubicles is inhibiting people from renting those desks.
Think of innovative (and less permanent) methods to separate places, such as utilizing various colors, sectioning off parts with plants, or selecting different artwork forms to hang on the walls. Keep in mind that it will always be simpler, as well as more cost-efficient; to construct new buildings at a later time than it will be to remove the older ones.
When it comes to efficiently managing your office and collecting insights that will assist you in developing a more productive working environment, accessing the proper digital tools is crucial, regardless of the size or type of your business.
Related article: How Big Should a Start-Up Office Be?
Bottomline
Just remember to do a careful cost analysis before you commit to hiring a private area. Expenses like security deposits, energy, furnishings, parking, liability insurance, and other such costs may strain your resources. But when you partner with Dynamico Space, you won’t have to worry about high costs! Working with us means dynamic, flexible, and affordable workspace solutions to help you scale up your business!
If you’re interested in checking out our space, you can check out our virtual tour today. You can also send us a message at [email protected] to know more about our latest deals and promotions.