10 Reasons Your Office Design Matters
How you’re office is designed speaks volumes about your company. Whether your in the process of conducting a renovation or thinking about moving, upsizing, or downsizing your space needs, you should think long and hard about how your space is designed. Below are a list of 10 reasons why the design of your office matters, and some opportunities of what you can to maximize the value of your space!
Your office is the physical presence of your brand
While not every company needs to be Google or Facebook, you do need to consider what your space says about your company. Are the carpets beige with 6’ tall plastic laminate cubicles spread throughout? Or do you have shared collaboration spaces, an inviting kitchenette, and graphics on the walls?
While these things may seem superficial at first blush, you have to remember that the office environment you’re creating is the physical manifestation of your brand. The two must resemble each other. It would be tough for a company like Pinterest to stick it’s employees in a beige carpeted room with minimal windows and ask them to dream up creative solutions for birdhouse boards — or anything for that matter.
But this environment may be exactly what’s needed for an accounting firm which has been established for sixty years with a no-frills reputation. Not every office needs to mimic Google (and it shouldn’t), but do consider what your office says about your company when it speaks for itself.
Boost employee productivity and morale
Call it a ‘millennial thing’ if you like, but I believe that your office needs to be a place people actually want to come and work. If I had to get up and go to work in a dingy office, I probably wouldn’t be too thrilled to go in to the office either.
Take your pick of the countless studies that show that employees perform better when they are a part of an office where they want to be working. This Harvard Business Review study by noted firm Gensler highlights how employees perform better when given some autonomy and control over their work environment, which can be provided through flexible spaces and furniture.
Design a client-facing meeting space
Put yourself in your clients’ shoes for a moment. When they enter your office, what do they see? A small waiting space with an administrative assistant or receptionist? Is there a view into the whole office where they can view your employees as they working? What do you want them to see? First impressions matter, especially when you are trying to build trust as a business.
Often time it helps to section off a small portion of the office to be designed as intentionally client-facing. This allows you to control what your client sees and engages with as they enter your space. More importantly, it limits anything you don’t want them to see, such as your employees playing paper football while waiting for the morning coffee to brew.
Instead, their experiences can be curated. Perhaps you have photographs on the wall of your company history and founder, or a mural commissioned by a local artist. This space is a ‘holding’ space, and designed to keep your clients engaged long enough for you to receive them and whisk them off to the nearby (and it should be nearby) conference room where you will begin your meeting. Should you feel comfortable enough with the situation, you can always give the grand tour through the office, which is where item #1 comes back in to the equation again.
Provide a visual backdrop for videos and social media posts
It’s a media rich world, and your office can be a part of it. If you aren’t involved in this type of marketing yet, you probably will be in the near future. When doing a short video where you explain a service, product, or result, having a nice wall graphic or accent color helps to provide the perfect backdrop. These shots can make your videos more cohesive, while also giving your audience a sense of what it’s like to work at your office.
Photos taken during company gatherings, collaboration sessions, or just off-the-cuff become pre-branded with your office aesthetic when properly designed.
Built-in flexibility helps to adjust to market demands
Every business operates differently. As a business grows or shifts focus on markets, the workflow often shifts too. If you build-in flexibility, you will be able to adjust to these shifts with fewer disruptions. Fewer disruptions means less interruption of productivity and thus profit.
Floor poke-throughs allow you to get electric and data where you need it now as well as where you may need it in the future. I encourage you to plan for them liberally. Add extra outlets along walls, you never know when you may need a new office or desk layout. Employee desks can be put on castors to allow them to move and re-group in teams for project teams or Agile ‘sprints’. Spaces that aren’t directly occupied by employees now can become collaboration stations until they are needed in the future, providing both a benefit and later.
Design a conference room to make others jealous
In our current era of Zoom and other digital meeting software, you can bet you’ll be doing remote meetings more often. Plan for it by having a well designed conference room. You’ll impress your virtual clients and network attendees, instantly communicating how you’ve got your stuff together.
Your conference room is extremely important, now so more than ever. The room itself must be well planned and considered for factors of acoustics, adjustable lighting levels, entry locations, clearances, and accents. Additionally the A/V system, IT, and communications technology should be optimized as well. You don’t want to be cutting out or lagging behind on your webcam during your big presentation.
If that new A/V system and decorative pendant just aren’t in the budget, no problem. Put the electrical conduit and pathways in place now to allow for future installation. A more functional light will suffice now, as well a more affordable camera and speaker system.
Provide access control for employees working late
It happens. A job runs long or a deadline is cut short. Maybe you thought it would take just another hour to tweak that presentation for your client tomorrow, but now you look up and realize its after 10 pm.
At some point or another, you or one of your employees will be working late. When planning for an office renovation, you should consider the factor of access and safety. Are employees able to lock up when they leave? Do you know who is entering your space and when? Many offices are in commercial buildings with 24/7 security guards which typically takes care of the safety issue, but consider what kind of access control would make you feel most comfortable and plan for it in your design.
Instill confidence in your consultants
A well designed office is not only great to impress your clients, it’s also an asset when working with consultants. Perhaps you’ve got a new management consultant dropping by for the first time, or a new engineering consultant you’re looking forward to working with. When they first arrive, make sure its immediately clear that you, and your business, have your act together.
Develop cross pollination of departments
Offices have many departments. Even smaller layouts can still be defined by project teams, studios, or market sectors. Maybe you want sales to talk with marketing, or you believe your high tech clean-room engineers just aren’t as engaged with the rest of the firm. This is your opportunity to consider how you can arrange the layouts of your departments, project teams, etc to maximize engagement and cross pollination.
Is there one kitchenette centrally located, or smaller ones dispersed throughout the office? Can it be arranged so that sales and marketing share the same printers, leading to more serendipitous interactions? Take this opportunity to help provide a gentle nudge towards collaboration and cross pollination between your departments. Even if two employees have no work together, simply building a stronger bond between them could help lead to greater employee engagement and perhaps less turnover in the long run. It’s an investment, but eventually it pays off.
Provide flexible collaboration areas
Develop areas where your employees can collaborate. There are endless ways to do this. Provide screens, large tables, and display screens for when the hard work and discussing of detailed issues is necessary. Here your staff will be able to get down to business, follow a Kanban board, or practice for a client presentation. If that doesn’t fit your company style, consider planning for a lighter, more fun area to encourage creative brainstorming and short meetings. Smaller spaces or areas designed for standing meetings only may encourage staff to not plan meetings strategically rather than holding six per day. Every company is different, and you should think about how yours works and what can be done to optimize your workflow.