Designing Your Office
If you’re redesigning your office, it can be difficult to keep track of everything. There are so many factors to consider and decisions to make, it can become overwhelming. Throughout it all, you cannot afford to get distracted. You need to focus on the fundamentals to make sure your office design is successful.
Today, we'll go through our top 6 office design tips we use with our clients to make sure you create an office design that solves your workspace challenges and sets you up for success. By the end, you'll be able work with your design & build company to create a much better design pack for your project.
1) Prioritise Functionality
It's easy to forget, but the single most important factor of any design is the impact on the performance of your people. No matter how stunning your office design looks, it will be a failure if it doesn’t help you improve productivity, enable communication, and support talent attraction and retention.
To ensure you prioritise functionality in your office design, work closely with your designer to establish how your people work and how to support this before you start thinking about design features and finishes. To be successful your space must match the way your people work. Learn more about creating a productive office design here.
2) Tailor it to Your Culture
Making sure your office design looks and feels like your company is essential. This is about more than the colours on the walls. It’s about the entire experience your people have while they are in the space, from the location to the coffee. If your office is a workspace that brings your brand to life, then your people will produce results in line with your culture.
To make sure your office designer keeps your space aligned with your culture, give them as much information as possible about your company before they start. This includes your values, identity, and how your staff work together.
3) Enable Hybrid
Hybrid working has created a huge change in the way workers use the office. No longer is it the only place to work. It’s a collaboration hub, where your staff come to build relationships and work on projects together.
To enable hybrid working in your office design, you need to make sure you are allowing sufficient space in your layout for it. Many modern office designs feature 30-45% collaboration spaces. You will also need to ensure your meeting spaces have AV capability so that remote workers can participate.
4) Include Variety
The days of staff working from a desk all day are long gone. Today, the modern office worker works on a wide variety of different tasks and needs a variety of different environments to support that. This will ensure that your staff can easily communicate when they need and also focus on deep work when appropriate.
To improve variety throughout your workspace, work with your designer to carefully plan how much space should be allotted to the different types of environments that your people need. Considering all the ways your people work throughout the day is really important to be able to create a workspace that matches the way they work.
5) Include Biophilia
One of the most important aspects of modern office design is biophilia. Often thought of as a few plants in the corner, biophilia includes all the natural elements in your workspace. This includes plants, wooden materials, and even natural light.
To improve biophilia in your workspace, make sure your designer has used as much natural material as much as possible. This includes wooden flooring and panelling, as well as moss walls and office plants. You should also maximise the use of natural light by placing the most used spaces on the outside.
6) Consider Amenities
When talking about office amenities, many people think of sleep pods and slides. When managed well, amenities can be a powerful part of the workspace experience. While the “fun factor” is an important part of amenities, the main purpose is how it improves the day-to-day experience for your staff.
The best amenities are ongoing ones that connect staff to each other – regular complimentary food being a good example. By making sure you are considering amenities when you design your office, you can further improve the experience your people have every day at work.
Planning Your Office Design
Designing your office can be difficult, even when working with an office design & build company. There are so many different considerations, it can be hard to know if you’re on the right track. By considering our top 6 office design tips, you can make sure your office design project is the success you need it to be.
To learn more about creating a great office design, read 5 Ways to Optimise Your Office Design. You'll learn more about creating a great office design that delivers real results for your company.
To take the next step, download the Definitive Office Design Guide. There, you'll get answers to all your questions about office design before you reach out to a designer, making sure you are managing them effectively to get the best possible outcome. Download your office design guide here.
