Tag: Office Design (page 12 of 13)

Guide To Small Office Must Haves

Improvements in IT and a revolution in the way we work in the past 50 years has led to many businesses opting for smaller offices and many even finding space at home to carry out daily tasks.

As with larger offices however there are still some essentials required to ensure the work environment is comfortable and work can be done efficiently. Here are a few essentials anyone moving into a small office should consider.

Office furniture
The standard and provision of office furniture is important not only for staff but also to create the right impression of your business. Old furniture and broken chairs will demoralise staff and could even be a potential hazard. In business presentation is important and if you want to recruit the best staff and ensure that they are loyal, then early investment in your office space is important.

Ensure utilities are reliable
The last thing you need is a faulty boiler, heating that stops working and disruptions to your energy supplies or phone lines. Having these breakdowns not only harms productivity but it can also disrupt workplace morale. Also ensure that you are on the best deal available to reduce energy costs for your business.

IT Systems
Many small businesses pay little attention to their IT systems until they breakdown. Some high profile cases of hacking should alert business owners to the importance of security and updating software and equipment regularly.

3 Office Design Myths

As the way we work continues to change rapidly driven by great technological advances and increased efficiency in workflows there has been a lot of debate on what makes the ideal office layout.

Certainly your office layout is likely to be influenced by the age of the building you find yourself operating in and in some cities it might not even be possible to stray too far from the traditional compartmental spaces.

So let’s look at three common myths about office layouts to help you decide on what’s right for your business.

Open plan is best
If being shut away isolated in a room isn’t for you then you might prefer the collaborative environment of the open space office but for some people this can actually impact on productivity. Open plan offices can get noisy and it may not always be the case they are collaborative. Design can play a major role in making a space work but if owners make it up as they go along then open plan isn’t going to make any difference.

Offices with lots of compartments stifle productivity
Staff might be able to communicate more if they can see each other, but these days even if they can, emails are rapidly becoming preferable to simply walking over to someone’s desk. Often being able to work in peace and quiet can actually boost productivity and you can create collaborative spaces for when they are needed.

Open plan layouts save you money
This may be true in some cases but not always. A large open plan office may end up costing more to heat and it will be difficult to please everyone when it comes to the temperature settings. You may also end up buying more office furniture to fill the space.

Drones Set To Power A Warehouse Boom

Drones may be a relatively new technology but they are about to become the next stage in a retail revolution that is transforming not only the way we shop but also the how goods are stored and distributed.

Amazon drones are already grabbing the headlines and ecommerce stores which were once simply a complement to established high street chains are now available to anyone who wants to set upo an online shop.

Yet even with drones and the internet doing a lot of the work, there is still the basic need to store those products and the simple warehouse is set to become a big draw for investors who sense that the returns in this sector are set to boom.

While drone technology is yet to become commonplace with issues such as the amount of drones that might be flying around at any given time, it is clear where things are heading. Drones are capable of dropping off an order less than 20 minutes after a button is clicked on a website.

The amount of infrastructure required to meet the demand for this type of service will spark a scramble for available warehouse space.

According to the latest figures, online shopping now accounts for 15% of all UK sales. Worldwide, ecommerce transactions are set to hit $4trn dollars by 2020.

Should Workplace Design Reflect Your Branding?

How many workplaces do you know that have interior spaces that reflect their branding?

Depending on how many you will have seen the answer is probably not many. Workplaces that reflect company branding are hard to find in most business sectors unless they appreciate just how important branding is to company culture as well as perceptions from the outside.

If you business is branding then there is a good chance you already appreciate how everything present in a business from its philosophy and culture to its furniture should reflect the brand.

It also shouldn’t be forgotten, that when customers and clients arrive at your workplace, their perception of your business can be greatly influenced by what they are seeing around them for the first time.

As everyone knows first impressions are important. If an office has a nice contemporary design that reflects the branding and colours of the business, then this will make those clients and customers feel more secure about doing business with your company.

For staff too, it’s important for them to buy into company culture and the work environment should encourage this by creating a clear sense of identity. Simply spreading a few brochures on meeting and coffee tables is not enough to make those employees feel part of an organisation that is going places.

Ditch the Beach Huts And Straw Bales, Employees Prefer Better Technology!

When it comes to office furniture removals, there is a growing trend towards useless items like slides, and other non-essential gimmicky furniture and apparatus into storage as businesses slowly realise that staff consider them secondary to better technological facilities to make work easier.

Many businesses have decided to jump onto bandwagon with all manner of playful additions to the office to the extent that it is unusual to enter decent sized city centre office without seeing areas to play pool, table tennis or both.

While there is nothing wrong with adding these sorts of elements into offices, they shouldn’t be added at the expense of more essential office items such as technological equipment. At least if you’re a business owner who wants to keep staff happy.

A recent study found that 79% of workers view reliable technology as more important than how the office looks. The survey appears to show that typical workers would rather see investment in things that make their jobs easier so that they can be more productive.

If you are an office owner considering ping pong tables, hammocks and so on, spare a thought for what staff really want. Play and rest areas may well be a waste of money if nobody has the time while at work to use them.

How to create a positive workplace

It’s often surprising to see how closely some offices resemble the TV version of the office with positivity at best on a par with the staff of Wernham Hogg. While not all of this is down the design and layout of office space, positive office design can at least go some way towards reducing the negative impact of inconsiderate managers and bosses.

One thing is certain, a negative work environment is not just bad for miserable staff members, it can also spread throughout the organisation leading eventually to apathy, lack of motivation and reduced productivity.

Some simple tweaks to the design and layout can have a surprisingly positive effect on everyone in the organisation if carefully thought out.

The introduction of more attractive office furniture will be welcomed by staff members particularly if desks and chairs are looking like they have seen better days.

Another important part of designing a positive office is to introduce a sense of fun. While work time shouldn’t always be fun time, having a laugh and perhaps a game of pool or table tennis with colleagues can give some release from day-to-day monotony. We all as humans like to be rewarded for our hard work.

Lastly areas should be well lit, and there should be plenty of space to move around in. There is nothing worse than being stuck in an office day after day in a crowded room full of colleagues you may not necessarily get on well with.

Will We See A Revolution Workplace Design In 2017?

2016 proved to be a quite a year and in the future historians will probably look on it as a key turning point in the history of the world but what can we expect in 2017? Will change be coming to the workplace environment or has change already been happening before our eyes even if we don’t really notice it?

With so-called millennials joining generation x in demanding more flexible workspaces that help provide a better work life balance changes have already been taking place. These have been led by leading tech companies in the US where corporate spaces have been transformed from traditional office layouts with a room for the boss and a boardroom to modular open plan collaborative workspaces that incorporate areas for entertainment, refreshment and so on.

Greater awareness of health issues in the workplace have also seen more notice taken of ergonomics. Business owners have realised that healthy workplaces make for happier more productive staff.

In 2017 the biggest thing we can expect is more of the same. With technology moving forward at a rapid rate and remote working now far easier than it ever was in the past, many offices have now become little more than meet-up spaces. Ironically the great technological advances we have witnessed in the offices has actually inspired and will continue to inspire a more human centred approach to workplace design.

How To Do Employee Focused Office Design In 2017

Office design for big businesses has come a long way in the past decade but what about smaller businesses?

Those business owners who don’t pay attention to their office layouts can risk alienation, lower productivity and an increase in sick leave among staff.

It doesn’t have to be this way, however, for those business owners stuck in the past with compartmentalised and unhealthy offices.

Creating spaces that staff will enjoy spending their time in doesn’t necessarily need to cost the earth. Simple measures such as bringing in more light, be it artificial or ideally natural can make a huge difference to productivity levels.

The same could be said for creating more mobile spaces where staff can feel comfortable moving around rather than feel that they must be seated for an entire 8 hour shift.

A common problem at this time of year is inadequate heating. Simply turning up the temperature during cold spells can make a big difference to staff morale, for a the comparatively small extra expense.

Those business owners who fail to think about their employees’ work environment could risk losing their best staff members and face a struggle to replace them.

Why Sound Acoustics Is Vital to Office Design

Offices come in all sorts of layouts from sleek open plan, to period offices in city centres.

The challenge in both cases is to find a solution that not only creates a sense of space but also provides privacy and a quiet place to work for those employees who need it. So when designing an office layout, a delicate balancing act needs to be struck to ensure that everyone in the workplace will be happy.

Unlike visual distractions, which can simply be screened off or hidden by a simple re-arrangement of furniture and screens. Unfortunately, good acoustics will require a more complicated solution to reduce noise from phones, chatter and colleagues moving from one place to another.

All of this can become very frustrating for those who require peace and quiet to do their best work, which will in turn hinder productivity.

While the modern trend continues to lean towards the open plan spaces which have been seen as the best way to develop cooperation and creativity since the 1950s.

To improve acoustics in your office requires knowledge of how sound impacts on different surfaces and how it is absorbed by others.

This starts with the introduction of carpets, acoustic panels and acoustic screens which can help reduce noise dramatically. Then create separate spaces for collaborative work so as not to disturb those staff members who prefer to work in quiet isolation from time to time.

Is Your Office Layout Influencing Your Business Culture?

The more you learn about architecture and the buildings we use everyday, the more you understand just how much they can influence us.

Do you ever find yourself sitting in a room at work wondering what might be going on in the office across the corridor or do you feel excluded from management who occupy a corner office hardly anyone ever goes into?

Despite open plan offices and glass partitions now being an established part of business culture, you can still be left feeling an unwanted sense of seclusion and separation.

As a business owner, having your office laid out in this traditional manner is more likely to put people off coming to work for your organisation.

The days when people coveted the big office in the corner are now numbered as collaboration is understood to be the key to effective working.

If everyone in your office is crammed into small rooms, then it can be little wonder that conflict between staff members can begin to develop and instead of working as a team, the organisation becomes fragmented.

This can all be changed by a re-imagining of your office layout to encourage rather than discourage collaboration and a more harmonious working environment.

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