Is there such a thing as the perfect office layout? No one layout will meet all business’s needs. Instead you need to make your office layout work for your business, staff and visitors.
So what things should you be thinking about when you’re planning your perfect office layout?
When you start planning you should consider various elements. A good place to start is to look at how work is currently carried out within your office (sometimes known as workflow and workstyle) and how it could be improved. You should look at whether space is being used efficiently and how best to incorporate technology into your workspace to benefit your business and staff. Lastly but most certainly not least – it’s vital that throughout any changes that your staff’s welfare should be a high priority. There’s no point in coming up with great design ideas if it’s likely to hinder your staff from performing at their best.
Workflow and Workstyle
Take a look at the way work passes between staff, who needs to interact with who and who would benefit from working closer together. By establishing which staff and which teams need to interact with one another you can improve workflow and working relationships which should result in better collaboration, idea generation and communication. This in turn should improve productivity and lead to better turnaround times, most efficient service and less duplication of effort etc. – to name a few of them many benefits Needless to say, by examining workflow and placing people together who need to work together there are many advantages to be gained.
Depending on your workflow requirements you should also be better placed to work out what office space you need. Should you go for partitioned or open plan or perhaps even move towards hot-desking across your company or within departments again allowing a degree of freedom so people who are currently working together can sit side by side? Many companies are moving towards an “active office” which encourages employees to move around, believing it can help to inspire greater creativity and productivity.
Making efficient use of space is the key to a good office layout and an office redesign and refurbishment is the perfect time to look for improvements to ensure the best use of space.
Question the use of all your space e.g. are you dedicating too much space to meeting rooms, could meeting rooms be dual purpose, do you have a break-out area for staff to de-stress and move away from their desk, does your reception area work for you and your visitors?
Last but not least don’t forget to look at the placement of printers, photocopiers and any other shared equipment. Try to ensure they are placed where they cause minimum disturbance but where the majority of users can easily access them.
Staff Welfare
Your office design, and particularly the layout, will have a big impact on your staff’s mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. The wellbeing of staff should be high on your list of priorities when planning your layout and design.
People are at the heart of all businesses and without staff there would be no business. Unhappy staff are less likely to stick around and you run the risk of losing valuable staff if they feel there working environment doesn’t work for them. It’s therefore vital to ensure ant design and layout decisions are either done with staff in mind or better still actively involve staff in any decisions or solicit their ideas and opinions.
It surprises many companies to find that their staff have great ideas that they themselves may not have thought of and which may benefit the business. However since its staff that do the day to day work it really shouldn’t come as a shock that they may be best placed to know what will work or won’t work and to suggest ways of improving the workflow or style.
With the right planning it’s perfectly possible to meet both your business needs, work to your best workflow and style and make a working environment that ticks all the right boxes in terms of inspiring creativity, enabling productivity, allowing staff to de-stress all the while coming together in an environment that they can be proud to work in. With good design, effective layouts and sensitive space planning anything is possible.
So alongside the many other considerations you need to take into account when you are planning your perfect office layout, if you keep workflow, workstyle and staff welfare at the forefront of your mind. If you do you’ll be well on your way to designing the perfect office layout and environment.
JBH Refurbishments
JBH Refurbishments have the experience to help you plan the perfect office layout. From design and layout considerations, to partitioning, ceilings, flooring through to the right office furniture call us to discuss your options on 0333 207 0339 or contact us via our contact form.
