What Goes Into An Office Refurbishment?

Whether you are considering an office refurbishment to help your staff improve their productivity whilst at the office, or for a completely different reason entirely, it is very important that you understand what goes into an office refurbishment before you commit to carrying out any works on your premises.

Whilst an office refurbishment is probably going to be the best thing you do for your workspace, if you go into it without knowing the key factors that go into a successful refurbishment, you will face a great deal of problems along the way. This article will go into more detail about what goes into an office refurbishment, as well as some steps you can take to ensure your refurbishment is successful for the entire company.

One of the first things your office refurbishment contractor will do when they take on the project is to complete a full site survey and space plan for your office. They will be able to choose the best places for all of your partitions, furniture and necessities such as kitchens and toilets will need to go to make the best use of space. Whilst some companies will choose to have their office refurbishment contractor deal with the entire design phase with very little input, other companies want to be involved as much as possible with the design stage.

A successful space plan will maximise the available space in your office and allow you to fit more staff and amenities than you ever thought you could in your existing space. A lot of companies tend to find that when they complete an office refurbishment, they do not actually need to move premises at any stage during the future unless there is a significantly large amount of growth as their refurbished space is enough to cope with their staffing requirements.

Without the correct space plan in place, companies may find staff more spaced out than they need to be, or the polar opposite of staff being packed too tightly together, both of which are bad for the overall feeling of the office.

We are often very surprised at the amount of companies that we go to see who are miss-managing their office furniture. Whether it is one extreme such as giving employees a full-sized, individual desk each, or giving their employees too smaller a space on a bench desk system. No matter which one it is, it has a detrimental effect on the productivity of their staff. If they are too spread out, then you will find a lack of effective communication going on throughout the office, whilst if they are packed too tightly together, then there may be too much communication, in other words, distractions going on!

When your office refurbishment contractor has finished with their space plan, they will have most often recommended a bench desking system to go into your new space. Not only does this give staff an adequate sized desk, it also allows you to create an open-plan office whilst still grouping the relevant departments together. For example, you will be able to house your accounts and HR staff close together, whilst keeping them away from the sales and marketing teams who need to work together to create the best growth for the business.

We have all seen the various studies that prove the benefits of the open office, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep staff in their different departments to aid productivity. Open offices allow for this to happen, as well as allowing space for communal areas and kitchens to improve the overall feeling of the office.

As we have discussed in a previous article, it is crucial that your office refurbishment contractor appoints a sole project manager to run the refurbishment project with your business. Whilst the project manager will still allow however much involvement you wish to have with your office refurbishment, they will be able to ensure that the project runs on time, and on budget.

One of the main things that dissuades business owners from refurbishing their office space is the threat of the project taking longer than planned and running over budget. Appointing a project manager stops this kind of issue from being a problem as they can focus on running the project, leaving you to run your business.

For more information around completing office refurbishments, give us a call on 0115 939 7572. We operate throughout Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and more.