Space-Efficient Office Design
Are you planning an office move, and looking to minimise the size of space you need to reduce costs? Perhaps you have several years left on your lease but have outgrown the space. You're looking to make your office as efficient as possible, to save real estate costs.
Every week, we speak to companies that are in this situation. It's a real challenge, as while it's important to minimise real estate costs, you can't overcrowd your office, as this will reduce the productivity of your people.
Despite prime office space being so expensive, many office designs are very space-inefficient. The average space utilisation rate for an office is 60% - far below the benchmark of 90%. This means you could be wasting 30% of your office right now.
Today, we'll go through 9 ways you can make sure your office is as space-efficient as possible without reducing the performance of your people and company. By the end, you'll know how to improve office space utilisation at your company.
1) Implement Open Plan
If your office has a lot of partitioning and different rooms, it will be very inefficient. A compartmentalised space requires much more space for walkways. It also limits how you can arrange furniture within the space. If you have lots of private offices, small team offices, or conference rooms, then you are wasting office space.
To solve this problem, implement an open-plan layout in your office. This will enable you to situate people and environments closer together, making your office more efficient. This doesn’t mean your office has to become crowded and distracting. Focused working areas can give staff somewhere to work without distractions. Effective acoustic design can also eliminate noise pollution.
2) Reduce Desks
Most companies have too many desks. With modern collaborative ways of working, having an assigned desk for every employee is inefficient. If your office space is more than 60% desks, then you are not using your space as effectively as you could.
While the exact requirements will be different for each company, most office designs should include 30-40% desking areas. some will be even less. By analysing your space, you can see how many desks are used at any one time, and reduce the quantity of desks accordingly. You could also reduce the width of the desks if further space savings are necessary.
3) Cut Meeting Rooms
Meeting rooms are another common cause of inefficient office layouts. Many meeting rooms are used less than 20% of the time. This is especially true for large meeting rooms and boardrooms. If it looks like you haven't got enough meeting rooms, you should consider if your people are only using them because there isn't enough collaboration space.
Meeting rooms take up 10-20% of most office spaces, with this percentage being higher in smaller offices. Occupation analysis shows that many companies should have around 5% of their office assigned to meeting spaces. Informal collaboration areas are more efficient and effective use of space.
4) Reduce Individual Offices
Individual offices are much less common than they used to be, though they are still prevalent in certain industries. While there may be a need for certain staff to have a personal office, they are very space-inefficient. A medium-sized office is about 150-200 sq/ft. Meanwhile, an open-plan workstation is 30-50sq/ft. Too many individual offices will mean you are spending much more than you need to on your office lease.
In most offices, less than 5% of the space is used for individual offices, though some layouts include over 50%. To improve the efficiency of your layout, minimise the individual offices in your space. You could replace them with bookable suites for remote meetings and hybrid work, as these will take up a lot less space.
5) Minimise Storage
Many companies waste valuable office space by having too much storage. Too much storage creates a cluttered and distracting environment. This reduces the productivity of your people. While some storage is necessary, large storage rooms for equipment and sundries are inefficient.
In some industries such as law, going paperless is not practical. However, keeping paper usage as low as possible will reduce your need for storage. For surplus IT equipment and furniture, you could look at a long-term storage facility, as this is much cheaper per square foot than office space.
6) Adaptable Spaces
If your space has an inflexible design, it will be very inefficient, as you will require more space for different environments to suit the needs of your staff. A typical indicator of this problem is that some areas of your space are overcrowded while others are empty. Another sign is if your people are complaining they don’t have enough of a certain type of space.
To resolve this issue, redesign your space with a degree of adaptability, so that your people can customise it according to their needs. This multi-functional approach will make your office layout a lot more efficient. To learn more, read the Top 4 Ways to Enable Customisation in Your Office Design.
7) Use Mobile Technology
Portable technology is a must in the age of hybrid working. This will enable your people to work in a different area of your office according to their tasks. Without it, your people are tied to fixed workstations. This reduces their flexibility and increases your office space requirements.
While the transition to mobile technology was sped up by the move to hybrid work, there is more to be done in making your workspace technology more portable. Mobile technology is of little use if your environment doesn’t support this. High-speed, secure Wi-Fi is essential, as is power supply throughout your office. This includes breakout and collaboration areas.
8) Hybrid Working
Overcrowding in your office can be very frustrating for your people. It creates a distracting environment that reduces their productivity and wellbeing. If you have this issue, your staff will likely be complaining they don’t have anywhere to get work done.
If you have explored all the other options and still need to fit more people in the space, you could consider implementing hybrid working. Part-time remote working enables staff to use their remote time on focussed work, where there are no distractions. As a result, there are fewer staff in the space at any one time, reducing your total space requirements. This will have an impact on the types of spaces you need within your office.
9) Assess Your Needs
Regardless of best practices and the latest trends, what matters most is that your office design layout meets the needs of your people. If your office doesn’t match the way your people work, it will not be efficient, regardless of how compact it is. Merely following templated design trends will not only result in wasted space, it will also make your people less effective.
To maximise the efficiency of your office, assess how your people currently use the office and what would make them more effective. You can then work with an experienced office designer to create a space that meets those needs. You should also consider how your needs will change in the future. While it may seem unnecessary to lease extra space now, you may save money and hassle by avoiding having to relocate in just a few years.
Making Your Office More Efficient
Real estate is the second highest overhead for professional services firms, so it needs to be managed carefully. To reduce the amount of office space that your company needs, create shared bookable resources, from desks to meeting rooms. Maximising flexibility in how your people work will make your space more efficient. However, it's crucial to remain focussed on your needs and how your people use the space, rather than trends or best practices.
It's also important to keep real estate rationalisation in context. While it can save huge sums of money each year, the costs will far outweigh the benefits if it hampers the productivity of your people. If reducing your office space will negatively impact your staff wellbeing, engagement, or teamwork, then it should be avoided. However, that doesn’t have to be the case. You can reduce costs while improving the productivity of your staff.
To take the next step, download your Definitive Office Design Guide. Inside, you'll learn everything that you need to about office design before you reach out to a design, from what is involved, to what it costs, to whether you need It or not. Download Your Design Guide here.
