Office Fit Out
An office space can tell a potential new employee, client or customer so much about a brand. Which is why office design should never be overlooked or undervalued. And your office can have a huge impact on your employees. With workers spending so much time in their company office, how could it not?
First and foremost you need to identify who you are as a brand. Once you’ve done this and you’ve got a clear picture outlined, your office space can follow suit.
If you feel like your office space could do with a refresh to bring it more in line with your brand, here are a few areas you can focus on.
Lighting
The lighting you have in your office can set the whole tone of your brand. For example, if you’re a champion of environmental awareness but have a dark and dingy office, you’re not reflecting your brand well. In this instance, lots of natural light flooding into your office sets the right tone and it will also be beneficial to your employees.
Personalisation
A really simple way to ensure your office space reflects your brand is by making it your own. Paint it the colours of your brand, put your company logo up and create personalised signage to really hammer home the point that this is your company’s office. Then, as soon as employees and clients walk through the door they instantly recognise where they are.
Community areas
If you want to promote a community spirit within your team, it’s no good to have everyone constantly sat by themselves away from each other. However, if you build community areas where employees can get together to talk about projects, or even just chat on their lunch, you’re going to foster a real sense of togetherness.
The future of office design?
The rise of active office spaces
With research telling us that office life is quite detrimental to our health, there has been a push for active office spaces that can support physical and mental wellbeing of employees.
A company in Norwich is exploring ways into making healthier offices through the furniture they have. Flomotion Studio already produce sit-stand desks and adjustable chairs and stools but have begun looking into soundproofing, bringing nature into the office and creating napping stations, all to improve the health of office workers.
Stuck in the past
The British Council of Offices conference takes place this week and Architects Journal asked some of the UK’s top office designers, engineers and agents what they thought of office design generally in 2018. Katrina Kostic Samen, vice-president of the British Council of Offices (BCO), said that workplaces must be designed with the diversity of today’s workforce in mind. She added that generic office space should be the thing of the past as there is no such thing as a generic workforce.
The general consensus amongst those asked was that too many offices are still being designed with rigid and old-fashioned corporations in mind, with occupiers’ requirements being somewhat overlooked. This results in generic offices that are not specifically suited to any industry or brand.
But why?
Long lead times to deliver new office developments is thought to be one issue, as well as the disruption caused by fit-outs of existing buildings, with offices struggling to adapt. However, we know from our experience here at Westgate that this can be easily overcome by using internal site hoarding such as Hoardfast. By using Hoardfast, upgrades and refurbishments can get underway without disruption to employees and offices can be adaptable and flexible to meet the evolving needs of the workforce.
