Whether your company is just getting started and you’re looking to create the best office space for your employees as you can or you’ve been in business for a while and you’re looking to refresh your current office space, designing a company office space that is effective and comfortable for your employees is incredibly important.
The process of how to design an office space can be approached in different ways, but there are some extremely important common steps that can help you to easily design your office.
Before we can get into the “how-to” of designing a workspace for your company, there are a few important questions for you to consider. These questions will help you to determine what is going to be important in your office space and what is going to make it personalized to your company.
So, before you jump into your office designing plans, take some time to consider the following questions.
What Is the Company Story?
Designing (or re-designing) your company office space can be a great opportunity to showcase the story of your company. This can not only help to create a unique atmosphere in your company office but also help your employees to connect with you and your company more fully.
This can then lead to a stronger and more involved company culture which can help your company to thrive in the future.
Who Is the Ideal Employee?
Every company has an “ideal employee.” Whether you are a salon or a manufacturing lab or anything in between, you want to attract the right people who are most suited to your company.
In order to do that, think about what that “ideal employee” is for your company.
Once you have an understanding of who that individual is, you can use your company office design to try and create a more effective company culture that will bring those “ideal employees” in.
What Is the Target Market?
What your customers care about is becoming incredibly important to today’s market. With the rise of customer-centric companies, many people are beginning to expect a more customer-inclusive experience with the companies they interact with.
Taking the time and making the effort to align your office space with the values and preferences of your customers can be an incredibly effective way to boost customer engagement. Taking your customers’ culture into account shows them that you understand them and their values and shows them that you also value those things.
This creates a sense of community between you, your company, your employees, and your customers — which can lead to a much more committed company culture.
What About Transparency and Company Culture?
A lot of companies are transitioning away from cubicles and private offices and opting for more open floor plans and community office arrangements. These can help boost company culture and encourage a higher level of team spirit and engagement from your employees.
Of course, this is not the only way to encourage a great team culture. Break rooms can be a great way to encourage a sense of community as well.
Also, some companies (or employees) may prefer more private, or semi-private, working environments. So it is important to consider what will work best for your company and your employees.
How Are You Going to Provide Privacy When Needed?
If you have a more open company office design, how are you going to provide privacy when it is needed? It is important to still include a number of quieter, more private spaces where employees can perform more individual tasks, have private conversations, and focus more efficiently.
Finding the right balance between private and public spaces for your company is the key to maintaining an effective workspace for everyone.
How Much Space Do You Need?
One of the most practical questions to consider when figuring out how to design an office space for your company is how much space you actually need.
Unfortunately, there is not really a standard rule for how much space you need to create an effective space for your employees to work. This is because every company is different, and so are the employees who work in them.
Some companies may need individual office spaces for each employee while others may do better with community workstations. Additionally, the rise of hybrid work schedules has left many offices only partially filled on any given workday.
It is important to take the company culture into consideration when considering how much space your office space should be.
What About a Hybrid Workspace?
Is a hybrid work schedule a good fit for your company? Many employees are enjoying the flexibility of working from home some days of the week and going into the office on others, but some employees may prefer working in the office all of the days of the week.
It is also important to determine if offering a hybrid work schedule is practical to your company. While it may be a viable option for a lot of types of businesses, some industries do require workers in the office every day. So before designing your office
How Are You Going to Make a Welcoming Reception/Break Area?
A welcoming break room is oftentimes the keystone of thriving company culture. This is where people from different departments can come together and relax, where your employees can take a much-needed break, where snacks and drinks are readily available, and where company potlucks, Christmas parties, and other community events can thrive.
Taking the time to create a comfortable and welcoming break room in your company’s office can be an incredible mood and productivity booster for your employees. Not only can breaks in a break room help them to stay more productive when they are working but a welcoming break room can also show your employees that you care about them.
How to Design Your Company Office
Alright, after you have considered the questions above, you are ready to start designing a company office space for your company!
1. Look Before You Leap
Step one of designing a workspace is planning. We know, this isn’t the most fun-sounding step — not like picking out color swatches and custom furniture — but it is essential to creating an effective office space for your company.
Think about what you are trying to accomplish with your office space. What challenges is your company going to face and how can the space help serve your employees?
Consider how your employees are using your current office space and even ask them their preferred manners of working and take those into consideration as well.
2. Know Your Employees
Knowing your employees can help you to create the best and most effective work environment for them — which can help your company to thrive.
Understanding and being a part of your company culture can help to make important decisions about your new company office design. For example, should you go for open workstations or private office desks?
Do you want traditional desks, standing desks, adjustable desks, or custom desks? What about seating arrangements?
Finding out what works best for your employees and the type of work they do can greatly improve your employees’ productivity and overall experience at work. Let’s be honest, no one wants to go into work if they have a hard chair, no lumbar support, and a desk that doesn’t quite fit their legs.
3. Make the Budget
This one can be really difficult, especially if you are a new company creating your first office. But it is important to do a little research and create a reasonable budget for your new company office design.
There are, of course, more expensive and less expensive options for the office furniture you’ll need in your new company office, and it is important for you to determine how much you can realistically spend on each piece of furniture.
This is where OnePointe Solutions can help you. With our collaboration with Collaborative Office Interiors and ROSI Office Systems, we can offer your affordable and custom office furniture solutions so you can create the perfect company office design without overspending your budget.
4. Use Your Natural Instincts
You’re a person and so are your employees. Your company office space should reflect that.
Use your natural instincts when deciding what kind of lighting, colors, materials, and art you’d like in your office space.
Try to reflect the feelings you’d like the office to have while still making sure to reflect your company’s culture and not sacrificing productivity for prettiness.
If you can, try to use natural lighting and bring some natural materials like maple block, wood, stone, and even plants into the workspace. This can give it a fresher and more alive feeling which can help to keep your employees feeling awake and energized.
Maybe incorporate some of these natural elements into your cabinets or countertops so that they are both functional and pleasant.
Even natural-mimicking materials like solid surface countertops are a great feature to consider as well.
5. Create the Right Atmosphere
There is no “one size fits all” with company office spaces. Every company culture is different and each will have different needs than another.
When designing your company office space, think about what kind of an atmosphere you want for your office. What type of atmosphere will best suit your company and best benefit your employees?
Maybe for your company, you’ll want to create more private (or semi-private) offices with just a few community areas for people to collaborate in. Or maybe your business needs the opposite — lots of community workspaces and just a few private areas for the occasional private conversation or individual task.
It’s also wise to consider having mobile partitions and dividers to increase and decrease space as you see fit without having to commit to a permanent wall and room structure.
6. (Where) Will There Be Food and Beverages?
It’s honestly almost difficult today to find a business that does not have a space for coffee or tea. Oftentimes these can be found in an office’s break room, but reception areas can also house these drink stations.
But offering these drink options as well as providing some healthy snacks can not only help to keep your employees energized and show them that you care about them.
Now, you don’t have to provide them with a complimentary lunch every single day, but supplying snacks and beverages can help to improve your company culture as well as encourage more productivity and focus from your employees.
7. Movement and Seating Areas
Because each of your employees will probably have their own preferred manner of working, you can better cater to your team as a whole by offering multiple different desks and seating options.
Maybe include a mix of sitting and standing desks and chairs with lumbar support and stools or chairs with arms and chairs without arms.
Also incorporating areas for movement into your workspace, whether by having hallways between offices or a wide-open break room, can help to combat a lot of the posture and back issues that many people can get while working at a desk all day. When your employees don’t go home every night with a sore neck, you can bet they’ll be much happier coming into work the next day!
8. High-Quality Furniture
We’ve really been talking about this one throughout, but having high-quality and comfortable furniture can be one of the best things for a company office. Your employees spend hours each day working from the office unless you have a 100% remote working system.
They are going to be much happier with those hours at work if they do not have to continuously adjust their chair or stretch their neck because their desk is too low.
So, when you are designing your company office, make sure that you are looking for high-quality furniture. There are many different options for office furniture, and just because it is high quality doesn’t mean that it needs to be boring looking or breaking the bank.
Need Help Designing Your Company Office?
Whether you are a new company looking to create your first office space or you’re simply looking to give your current office space a good revamp, OnePointe Solutions can provide you with affordable custom office furniture options. From cubicles to reception desks to cabinets and everything in between, OnePointe Solutions, and our partners Collaborative Office Interiors and Rosi Office Systems can help.
We at OnePointe Solutions can help you find and create the perfect office furniture solutions that fit your needs and your budget. So, if you’re thinking about designing a new office space for your company, give us a call at 866-612-7312 to speak directly with a design specialist today!