Advantages of Moving Office
If you’re planning an office relocation, you’ll know that it's an exciting opportunity. However, you'll also know that it's a huge project. Depending on the size of your office, it could be a year or more before you can complete your move. There is also the lease costs and fit out costs to be considered.
To justify such a huge investment of time, effort, and money, there have to be several significant benefits to moving office. And there are: a well-planned and executed office relocation can deliver excellent ROI for your business by improving the performance of your staff and company as a whole.
At Zentura, we’ve been helping companies in London and across the UK move offices since 2008. In that time, we’ve worked on hundreds of different projects, all with different briefs and objectives. In this article, we’ll walk you through 10 of the most important benefits of an office relocation, and how you can maximise their impact on your project.
Boosted Performance
The biggest benefit of a successful office move is an improvement in staff productivity, which then has a positive impact on overall company performance. As the place where your staff spend most or all of their working lives, your office has a profound impact on their performance. Research shows that a well-designed office can increase productivity by up to 20%.
A relocation provides the opportunity to completely redesign your office to optimise productivity. To maximise the productivity of your staff in your new office, you need to provide a space that matches the way your people work.
Improved Collaboration
Another key component of team performance is how well they collaborate. According to a study by Stanford University, teams that collaborate well are 50% more productive. As the place where your people come together, your office has a key role in enabling and encouraging collaboration.
To maximise collaboration in your new office design, you need to provide a variety of collaboration spaces. Collaboration mostly happens informally in small teams, so spaces that encourage this are crucial. You need to provide a variety of different spaces to facilitate the way your people now use the office.
Growth Capacity
One of the most common mistakes we see companies make when choosing an office is not planning for growth. If your company has aggressive growth plans over the next 5-10 years, you need to allow for this when choosing a new office.
To maximise growth capacity, ensure your new office has capacity for all your planned headcount growth for the next 2-3 years. To allow for further growth, you could negotiate an option with your landlord to take up extra space in the future. This would give you extra flexibility and lower short term cost.
Improved Talent Attraction & Retention
One of the most important benefits of relocating your office is improved talent attraction & retention. Recruiting and retaining high-performing staff is absolutely essential to the success of your business. A recent study found that high performers are 400% more productive than average ones.
Your office relocation can improve your talent attraction by ensuring your workspace is well located with a good talent pool. Office relocation can also improve your recruitment by creating a great first impression. A workspace with a great user experience will also improve staff satisfaction, making them stay at your company longer.
Improved Culture
An often overlooked aspect of office relocation is how your new office design can reflect and enhance your culture. This includes the entire experience your staff have throughout the day, from the chairs they sit in, to the coffee they drink. It all affects their user experience, and will have an impact on their performance.
To ensure your new office suits your culture, you need to create an office that brings your brand to life. The first part is to make sure the layout of your office matches the way your people need to work. The finishes and furniture should also be considered.
Better Wellbeing
Improved worker wellbeing leads to reduced absence and increased productivity. A key part of the wellbeing of your people is your office – the place they spend most or all of their working lives. An office relocation is a great opportunity to improve the wellbeing of your staff because you have a blank canvas to work from.
The best way to improve the wellbeing of your staff with an office move is by maximising the biophilia in your new office design. Biophilic design is a design concept that advocates the use of natural materials throughout the workplace. This includes everything from timber wall slats to fresh air.
Updated Technology
Now more than ever, your company is heavily reliant on technology. Technology is now an essential part of every office - from the building management system to the audio-visual system, technology is a crucial part of your space. If your current technology is outdated, your people will be held back. An office relocation is an opportunity to change that.
Ensure your people have portable laptops and Wi-Fi to enable agile working. An access control system will improve security throughout your new space. A room or desk booking system can also reduce the amount of space you need by allowing people to share resources.
Enhanced Sustainability
Sustainability is crucial in your new office. It has a major impact on the carbon footprint and environmental impact of your company. Moving to a newer, more energy efficient office can reduce your carbon footprint. A new office can also use more sustainable materials and reduce waste.
When choosing your new office, choose an office with a high EPC rating. This will make your finished office more energy efficient. A space efficient layout will also reduce the size of office you need, thus decreasing your carbon footprint.
Reduced Lease Costs
Real estate is the second highest overhead expense most companies face. Most services companies spend 10-15% of annual revenue on real estate. However, the average organization has 30-50% more real estate than it needs. This means you could be wasting more than 5% of your annual revenue on office space you don’t need!
An office relocation provides a great opportunity to reduce your rental costs by moving to a new office with a much more efficient layout. Given that office space in London costs between £80 and £120 per sq/ft, reducing your office space by 30-40% will be a huge saving for your company.
Reduced Operational Costs
An office relocation can also help you reduce the operational costs of running your office every day. These can come to a surprising total – around 25% of annual rent. An office fit out is an opportunity to reassess all these costs and how to reduce them going forward.
The most important operational cost to consider when moving office is your energy costs. For example, modern HVAC systems are up to 50% more efficient than systems from 10 or more years ago. Modern electrical appliances are also much more efficient than outdated options.
Your Office Relocation
An office relocation can have many different benefits for your people and company. Here, we’ve explained the most important ones and how you can make the most of them. By improving the individual and collective performance of your people at the same time as reducing your real estate costs, an office move can provide significant and lasting benefits for your company.
To take the next step toward moving office, download your Ultimate Office Relocation Planning guide. It’s one comprehensive guide that will help you understand everything that goes into moving office, what it costs, and how long it will take. You can download your copy here.
To learn more about everything that goes into an office move and how it works, read Step by Step: The Office Relocation Process.
