If you’re office space is needing a vital upgrade, it can feel daunting to actually start renovation work as there’s so much to do. You may be putting renovation off to not disrupt your business’s workflow or you may feel stuck on how to improve your office space. Whatever the reason, it’s important to renovate your workplace when needed to keep your employees comfortable, healthy and happy while at work.
Renovating your office space doesn’t have to be so difficult and can be quickly transformed with a few simple steps. If approached in the right way, an office refurb brings lots of benefits to your employees and wider business. You can boost staff morale and wellbeing while focusing on long-term sustainability and energy efficiency in your office. Use this guide to renovating your office space to improve your workplace.
Think about your goals
As with anything in business, particularly with significant changes, the best place to begin is to think about the end goal. Before you can transform your office, you need to think about what you want to achieve with the renovation. Consider why you’re upgrading the space and what made you think about improving the work environment. From this, jot down your goals you want to achieve with the renovation so you can use this as a guide to help make informed decisions. These goals can easily steer you in the right direction and avoid creating a new workplace that doesn’t suit your business needs, or your employees’ needs.
Some goals could be:
- To encourage employees to work in the office more.
- To make better use of the space.
- To update the design to match new branding.
- To have a seamless connection and workflow for hybrid teams.
- To make the space more comfortable and focused on employees’ health & wellbeing.
Prioritise your employees
Your upgrade of your office space should prioritise your employees and cater to their requirements. Before you start designing and changing the environment, you need to take into account how your employees work best. If your business thrives on collaboration, you need to ditch isolating desks with dividers and create an activity-based and open-plan design. This allows your employees to interact with departments and move across different areas based on their tasks for the day. You could still create a focused and quiet zone for those tasks that require alone time and complete concentration!
Map out the teams in your organisation and see how best to design the office based on their job roles. As you go around the office mapping this out, ask employees how they would like to work to get an idea of what works best for each person.
Make the best office environment
With the knowledge of how your staff like to work and various zones created for different tasks, you need to think about how to bring this to life while making the best office environment for your business. Many offices have huge open plan areas for collaboration, but this doesn’t suit every job role. This is why it’s best to opt for zones that are designed for different job roles and tasks where staff can move to or stay in for the day.
To make the best working environment, you should try to cater to everybody’s preferences. You can do this by creating different acoustic zones and clearly signposting them. Have a quiet, loud and mixed zone for independent work, collaboration and a mixture where employees can socialise. As well as this, you can provide dedicated areas for relaxation and have controls for employees to adjust the temperature and light in their workspace.
Colour also comes into this and is a huge part of making the best working environment. Picking colours that reflect your business for a strong brand presence for your employees and guests is important. However, choosing colours that also help improve how your staff work needs to be considered. This is because colour can significantly impact our mood, thoughts and productivity, so you need to be wise with your colour choice to motivate staff and keep them happy
Have a realistic budget
Once you know what direction your renovation is heading in and you have an effective design in mind, you need to get your finances in order. Create a budget that is realistic, depending on your requirements and design elements. Think about your finance constraints and how much you’re willing to spend overall and for each aspect of your renovation. Calculate what needs to be done and make sure your budget covers every aspect of the project. Include the design, materials, labour and unexpected costs to really cover everything just in case.
Focus on sustainability
Sustainability is a vital aspect of daily life and business practices. We all need to be more sustainable and make eco-conscious decisions to help improve our planet. Businesses should be leading this and encouraging staff, guests, clients and customers to be greener, setting a shining example of sustainability and what needs to be done to protect the Earth.
Choose eco-friendly materials, energy-efficient lighting and power-saving appliances and technology to help reduce your workplace energy consumption and negative impact on the environment.
You should also implement recycling programs to encourage staff to make greener choices and offer eco-friendly tools and resources they need to use during the working day. Sustainability can even come into play when de-cluttering your space. You should research and understand how to get rid of hazardous waste when tidying the office ready for renovation, because you may come across hazardous cleaning products and technology that need to be disposed of properly.
Evaluate your current technology
It is essential to evaluate your current technology when upgrading your work environment, as if it isn’t fit for purpose, it can affect productivity and cause frustration and stress for your employees. Many teams rely on technology to do their job. Plus, there are fully remote team members and those that work on a hybrid basis that need to stay connected to those in the office.
Gain your employees’ feedback on your technology and note down the obvious problems. For example, is there quality tech running in your meeting rooms to connect to people outside of the office? Whatever you find wrong with your current technology system, you should find ways to improve it and replace technology with newer and more efficient technology to create a seamless workflow.
Upgrade furniture
Once you have everything in place, such as design and technology, you need to upgrade the current furniture you have to provide comfort to your staff. A desk and chair aren’t the only furniture staff need now. Having cosy and comfortable furniture away from the desk is essential to encourage staff to take a relaxing break or work in a less stressful environment. Have plush sofas with plenty of cushions on them, dining tables and cushioned chairs to prevent employees from eating at their desks, and even beanbags as something to sit on and escape the stress of the desk. As well as this, ensure you have ergonomic chairs to promote proper posture and comfort at the desk. In meeting spaces, have a range of different furniture to set the tone for different types of meetings. For example, for more professional and boardroom style meetings, have a long wooden table and small office chairs that can be adjusted. For casual meetings, have comfortable armchairs, sofas, or beanbags to put comfort first.
Use the guide to renovating your office space to provide the best working environment for every employee. Put their health and wellbeing first by catering to their working styles and give them various spaces to retreat to when times are tough and stressful. Doing this will make your workforce more productive and happier, reflecting positively on your business.
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