4 Tips to Successfully Renovate Your Office
Coordinating the many intricacies of an office renovation can be the biggest test of your ability, as well as greatly pushing your company cash flow. As a result, if you’re just thinking about renovating your office and you haven’t explored the idea too much, try to ask yourself if renovating is the best option for your company.
1 – Think Carefully
If the office isn’t working out for you or seems too old for your modern requirements, you need to put some serious thought into if renovating is the best option when you could just relocate. Esteemed interior designer Gabi Da Rocha suggests that you need to think about the physical and financial barriers that could interrupt your renovation or make it more difficult, and also if the timing is right. If your employees are feeling particularly stressed due to a specific company-wide task, for example, a renovation could put additional pressure on them.
2 – Consider Your Processes
Your office may seem straightforward, but it will have many different processes operating at the same time. Different business processes will interact with each other and different employees in often unpredictable ways. You should think about the whole processes that your office undertakes. For example, consider the journey taken by your supplies. You should think about the renovation as an opportunity to make journeys more efficient. For instance, built-in to your renovation could be a supplies entry system, supplies storage system and supply exit system, streamlined to increase efficiency. The journeys of supplies and consumables are too often an afterthought, and this can lead to expensive fixes. This is especially true with their exit - make sure you have a good system to deal with bulk recycling, as failing to consider recycling waste can be a detriment to your corporate reputation. Energy-oriented renovation is also becoming popular, and SMEs, in particular, need to consider the journeys of each process that requires energy.
3 – Consider Your Employees Needs
In modern times, employees have grown tired of being confined in an office space. Your employees’ happiness directly increases their efficiency, and them being happy can have an impact on your revenue. Today’s workforce tends to prioritize mobility, and many offices are opting for a shared space with different types of workspaces – Facebook’s office in Menlo Park even has hammocks in which their employees can work.
4 – Think of the Financial Strategy
This can be a bit more difficult, but as you are running a business, you need to consider your Return On Investment (ROI) for the renovation. To do this you need to have a detailed and carefully planned strategy. First work out how much the renovation can help your office. This can be a bit abstract and involve a bit of guesswork, but a good starting estimate is to assume your employees will increase their efficiency by 5% in a well-planned office. Work out how much this will benefit your company and then work out when you will get that investment back. For example, an annualized ROI of about 15% is really good, and that means that you will make 15% of the cost of the renovation back every year by increased efficiency. Some consultancy help will probably be helpful here, and if your company is big enough it can be very worth it.
