A question many companies ask themselves is, “When is the right time to carry out a refurbishment?” Given that your Kent or London office refurbishment may be one of the biggest expenditures for your business and requires thorough planning it’s a question that requires careful consideration. So, when is the right time to refurbish? In this article we aim to address this important question.
Signs You Need To Refurbish
There can be many signs that it’s time for an office refurbishment. From something as simple as needing a rebrand or refresh to a drop in productivity to empty desks or overcrowding, all of these signs are indicators that it may be time to update your office space.
Your office starts to look tired
If it’s been some time since you refurbished your office space, you may find that its starting to look tired. This can include everything from the decor to the furniture. When the décor starts to look faded or dull or where your office furniture is starting to fall apart or looks run down then its time to think about refurbishing.
A tired office is likely to leave your employees and site visitors feeling that you don’t value your company or employees. It’s also tends to leave a bad first impression on staff and visitors and as the saying goes “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.”
Outdated branding
Your office may have perfectly reflected your brand and company culture when you first refurbished your office space but after a number of years you’ve likely changed.
Ask yourself if your current office still reflects your business and the message you want to convey. Does it showcase your business, your values and your services? If the answer is no, then refurbishing will be an important first step on the path to ensuring your office once again reflects who you are as a business.
You don’t always need a full refurbish but it’s worth considering refreshing your office to bring it into line with your current branding.
Old fashioned layout
Office layouts have changed over the years and the choices in layout can make all the difference to your business’s productivity and employee health and well-being. If your office design isn’t people centric and focussed on what your staff needs then you are likely to see a drop in job satisfaction, productivity and staff retention.
If you’re seeing these issues within your business it’s worth considering a refurbishment to change the layout of your office, to introduce flexibility and choice.
A drop in productivity
If you’re seeing a drop in productivity it may be due to your office. We know from research that the office environment can have a significant impact on how staff perform in their jobs and office productivity.
Office design, office layout, privacy, breakout areas, natural light, temperature and ventilation, noise, office planting and storage can all impact how an employee feels about their workplace.
Poor staff health and wellbeing
According to AXA UK and Centre of Economic and Business Research poor health in the workplace is estimated to cost British companies over £28bn a year annually through sick leave, resulting in 23.3 million working days lost to work-related ill-health.
Staff health and wellbeing are vital to a business. Research has shown that employers who invest in a refurbishment and who provide their staff with a “healthy work environment and mentality” reap the benefits through improved employee health, lower employee stress, increased productivity and reduced absenteeism.
Retention issues
Retaining staff is vital for every business. If your staff are unhappy, they are far more likely to leave. This is especially true of the younger generation.
Staff retention is a key indicator of how employees feel. Do they feel valued, listened to? Does their workspace enable them to get on with their work – or hinder them, making it harder to perform the tasks they’ve been set? Are they able to find a quiet space when required? When staff are happy this will lead to a decrease in turnover within the business.
Problems recruiting
How an office is designed and refurbished is vital to being able to attract the right workforce, particularly the younger generation, who place a premium on working in the right office where the design has been well thought out.
Brita carried out research which found that 79% of office workers stated that a well-designed office would motivate them to accept a job. Presumably, a badly designed office would have the opposite effect.
A One Poll survey looked at why companies across the UK are struggling to attract and retain younger workers into their businesses. Over 2,000 UK office staff were surveyed, and it was found that over 21% of 18–24-year-olds say that they’ve walked away from a potential employer because of poor or uninspiring office design or where there was a lack of available amenities.16% of the same age group have left a job because of having to work in a poorly designed office space.
Dan Zakai, co-founder and CEO at Mindspace stated, “Millennials will constitute over 50% of the working population in the next few years. It’s insightful to see that so many graduates and young workers are turning their back on potential employers because of the poor design of their office. While many young workers in the UK still value a good workplace culture and decent salary, employers need to start placing a much larger emphasis on the aesthetics of the office and fostering a more collaborative workspace in order to retain and attract the best young talent through their doors.”
Downscaling or Upscaling
Where your company is downscaling or moving to a hybrid way of working you may find that your current office space is too large or doesn’t have the “right type of office space” set up. In the case of downscaling, it may be time to consider different office space as having empty desks isn’t a good use of floor space. By moving you’ll be able to design and refurbish your new office to meet your specific business needs.
If you are upscaling your company and taking on more staff, you’ll need to ensure you have enough office space to house everyone. Overcrowding is one of the issues that leads to employee dissatisfaction. Many offices find they have wasted office space that could be better designed to better accommodate new staff. It that’s not possible then you’ll need to consider moving to new premises which can be designed and refurbished to accommodate your new staff numbers.
The right type of office space
If you find that, like many businesses, you don’t have the right type of office space or you have e.g., too many individual desks or offices but not enough spaces that can be used for collaborative work, it may be time to consider a refurbishment or move to new premises.
According to a survey carried out by Knight Frank, of 373 global businesses, 55% of them “believe they will increase the proportion of collaborative space in their offices over the next three years. 54% plan to increase hot-desking and desk-sharing regimes as space becomes more collaborative.”
Although collaborative space is on the increase we also know that privacy remains important. The Steelcase report “The New Era of Hybrid Work” found that hybrid working options came out top however being able to work in a private space was still extremely important to staff with single-person enclaves, privacy and workspaces with full or partial enclosure and breakout areas scoring high.
Too much clutter and not enough storage
You may find that your office starts to look cluttered over time. This is usually a sign of a lack of storage or you may be running out of appropriate available space. Clutter is not ideal in an office. It can make the space feel overcrowded and also become a safety problem, especially if it’s likely to cause a tripping hazard. As an employer under the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 you have a legal duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of your employees.
It may be that you have simply run out of storage space and need to reassess your office layout to be able to incorporate more storage or you may have come to the end of the available space within your office that can be used for storage. In both cases looking at office layout or a refurbishment may resolve your clutter issue.
Noise issues
One of the biggest bug bears for office staff is office noise.
In a DELL survey 34% of staff cited colleagues talking too loudly as a major annoyance. Work by Berry and Banbury showed that “99% of those surveyed reported that their concentration was impaired by various components of office noise, especially telephones left ringing at vacant desks and people talking in the background.” Research by Oomen, Knowles and Zhao reported that disturbing noise in an open plan office environment can ultimately lead to decreased productivity, increased stress levels, lower employee morale, increased absenteeism and overall increased staff turnover!
Too much office noise within the office can be a sign of poor acoustic design or poor office design. These design flaws can be addressed by improving the design of the office space to tackle the noise levels. This can include introducing a suspended or drop ceiling which will absorb noise, help to reduce reverberation and prevent sound from travelling to adjacent areas; utilising acoustic screens, dividers, partition walls and panels can be used to act as noise barriers which will absorb unwanted noise and prevent it from passing through rooms; installing double-glazed panels can block noise and replacing hard flooring with carpets to reduce ‘foot-fall’ noise.
High noise levels may also indicate that you ned to consider establishing quiet areas within your office. A refurbishment could help you to introduce break out areas. Breakout spaces are a good way to provide staff with places they can “get away” from the hustle and bustle of a busy office and provide them with a space to do quiet work or to simply relax, destress and take some time out.
Location, location, location
When you first chose your business premises it may have been in the ideal location for your company. However, over time you may decide that your business would be better located elsewhere.
You might be looking for somewhere that’s more centrally located with better public transport and road networks. You may decide you need to be closer to your customer base or nearer to your competitors. You may have grown and need more parking spaces. The reputation of your current location may have declined. In these cases you may be looking for new premises in a new location and support to find the perfect office in a location that meets your needs.
No longer able to attract new clients
If you are finding it harder to attract new clients this may be due to a number of factors including your office being located in the wrong area and no longer attracting footfall.
It can also be due to negative first impressions when clients come to meet with you in your office space. If your office looks run down or out of date it may put customers off doing business with you.
Is Now the Right Time?
It’s clear that how your office looks and performs in terms of enabling your staff to get work done, in how productive your staff are and whether your location still helps attract new clients plays a major role in how successful your company is. When you find that your business or staff are under performing it’s probably time for an office refurbishment.
JBH Refurbishments, Experts In Office Design and Refurbishment
JBH Refurbishments have over 30+ years experience in office design and office refurbishment and fit outs. We can advise on all aspects of your Kent or London office refurbishment. We understand what’s required to design an office space and carry out a refurbishment to the highest standards. We can provide the right expertise for your project. Contact us via our contact form or by calling us on 0333 207 0339 today for a free on-site consultation.