Office Refurbishment Advantages
Deciding if you need an office refurbishment can be very difficult. You’re probably well aware of the stress and difficulties associated with planning and delivering such a project. This may make you question whether it’s worth the effort. The truth is, it may not be. It depends on the state of your office, your design challenges, and the problems you are looking to solve.
Every week, we help companies across the UK assess their workspace needs and plan refurbishments. To help you decide if you need an office refurbishment or not, we’ve compiled a list of the 10 most common benefits of an office refurbishment. We've also given some ideas about how they might apply to your project.
1) Staff Productivity
Staff productivity is an absolutely crucial consideration in any office refurbishment. If your project will not improve the productivity of your people and company, it will be very difficult to justify.
An office refurbishment can help make your staff more productive by giving them a workspace that matches the way they work. Your workspace needs may have changed hugely since you moved into the office or last refurbished several years ago. An office refurbishment allows you to update your space and give your people an environment that maximises their performance.
Further Reading: How to Maximise Staff Productivity with Office Design
2) Talent Attraction & Retention
Getting and keeping the best talent available is crucial to the long-term success and growth of your company. However, doing this is a lot more difficult than it sounds. In a competitive labour market, a great workspace design and experience can set you apart from the competition.
If your current space doesn’t deliver a fantastic first impression, then you are immediately at a disadvantage. A refurbishment can help by allowing you to create a space that delivers a great first impression at a fraction of the cost of relocation.
Further Reading: 4 Ways a Great Workspace Can Help Talent Attraction and Retention
3) Culture
There is no denying the importance of workspace culture in the modern office. When you have a great culture, employees work harder, have more creativity, and usually exceed expectations. On the other hand, “disheartened” workers are 10% less productive.
There are 9 key components of company culture, and your workspace plays a key role in 3 of those: communication, environment, and wellbeing. A refurbishment can improve your culture by creating an environment that encourages team connection.
Further Reading: 3 Ways to Improve Company Culture with Office Refurbishment
4) Staff Engagement
Keeping your staff engaged with your company is very difficult, but equally important. Employee engagement is the level to which your people are intellectually and emotionally invested in your company’s success. Engaged people are more productive, more innovative, and stay at their company much longer than unengaged workers.
While there are many ways to improve staff engagement at your company, your office is one of them. If your staff engagement is not as good as it could be, an office refurbishment may be worthwhile. An on-brand workspace that brings your culture to life will increase staff connection to your company. There are also other ways to improve staff engagement with office design, which you can read more about below.
Further reading: How to Improve Staff Engagement With Office Design
5) Collaboration
While it may be easy to dismiss collaboration as a buzzword, it is an essential part of company success. 86% of employees in leadership positions blame lack of collaboration as the top reason for workplace failures. Top-performing workers spend 45% of their time working collaboratively.
As the place where your people spend most or all of their working lives, your office will have a big impact on the ability of your people to work together efficiently. If your team collaboration is poor, a refurbishment may be able to help. Most collaboration happens informally in small teams. Creating spaces specifically designed for this will improve the performance of your people.
Further Reading: 5 Ways to Improve Collaboration with Office Design
6) Wellbeing
Wellbeing is about much more than the amenities package, though that is important. Workplace wellbeing relates to all aspects that impact the way your people feel about work, from the commute to the colleagues. The environment they work in is also a part of this. In recent years, workers have become much more conscious about their wellbeing. It is now one of the major factors applicants consider when deciding whether to accept a job offer or not.
The key signs of poor staff wellbeing are high staff turnover, declining productivity, and high absenteeism. If you are having any of these issues, it may be worth considering an office refurbishment. This will enable you to create a space that improves the physical and mental health of your people.
Further Reading: 9 Ways to Improve Workplace Wellbeing with Office Design
7) Running Costs
Many of the factors we have discussed so far relate to staff performance. This is where office refurbishment can have the biggest impact on your bottom line. However, office refurbishment can also help you reduce your real estate running costs.
An office refurbishment can reduce your running costs by installing much more energy-efficient utilities. For example, modern HVAC systems are up to 50% more efficient than systems from 10 or more years ago. Given that HVAC generally accounts for 40% of a company’s energy costs, this can be a huge saving.
8) Space Rationalisation
Another way an office refurbishment can save cost is by reducing the amount of office space you need. Despite prime office space being so expensive, many office designs are very space-inefficient. The average office design has 30-40% wasted space!
If you could refurbish your office to a more space-efficient layout, you could create a sublet space in one area of your office. This would bring in additional income to help offset your real estate costs. Common ways to make your office layout more efficient include reducing meeting rooms/ individual offices and moving to a hot-desking system.
Further Reading: 7 Ways To Make Your Office Design More Space Efficient
9) Brand Image
It may be easy to think of an on-brand office as a nice-to-have. However, it can bring tangible benefits to your business. An on-brand office can set you apart in the battle for top talent, improve your staff engagement, and even improve your brand reputation.
An office refurbishment can help you create an on-brand environment, without all the expense and effort of a full office relocation. A mid-touch refurbishment could focus on upgrading the finishes package and most popular areas. This would completely transform the look and feel of your space.
10) Future – Proofing
One of the greatest challenges many companies face when planning refurbishments is considering their future requirements. The average UK office lease lasts 7 years, and what you need from your office will change substantially over that time.
An office refurbishment improve the flexibility of your office, making it easier to change the way your people work. If your workspace needs have already changed, a refurbishment can also enable you to adapt to your new requirements much easier.
Further Reading: How to Future Proof Your Office Design
Improving Your Company With Office Refurbishment
While it may be difficult to associate the high costs of an office refurbishment project with the bottom-line benefits it brings, there are many ways an office refurbishment can improve your business performance.
In this article, we’ve covered 10 of the most important benefits. These include the various ways refurbishment can improve staff performance and real estate costs. However, there are many more. These will be more specific to your situation, such as reducing noise levels and improving ergonomics.
If you’re starting to plan an office renovation, download our office refurbishment planning guide. It’s a 7-step guide that explains everything you need to do when planning your office refurbishment. It will take you from preparing the brief to signing the contract. Download your refurbishment planning guide here.
