Office - Setting Up an Office
Moving on Up!

Moving on Up!

Space

When considering how much commercial space to lease, add some extra space for growth to the total square footage of the space you are currently occupying. Determine how many employees you expect to be housing by the end of the next year. Determine what furnishings and office equipment you will need in order to accommodate them.

Decide whether or not you will need a reception area. Decide on the image you want to project through the layout and design of your space. Determine your need for conference and/or demonstration rooms.

Try to project two or three years out from the start of the lease—will the new space accommodate your anticipated growth?

Location

Where you locate your business is very important. If you locate in an upscale suburban neighborhood or a fashionable area of downtown, you may attract consumers with plenty of disposable cash. But you will also face high rents or leasing costs, and that puts you at risk for business failure. Less upscale areas may offer tax incentives or spaces with attractive lease options. However, these areas may have high crime or vandalism rates. And how about the commute? How far is it from your home to your new office space? All of these considerations need to be carefully examined when deciding where to locate your business.

Parking

You should determine what both your employee and customer parking needs will be. Does the space you are considering offer enough parking for your needs and the needs of surrounding businesses? Is the parking underground or on-street metered parking? Is handicapped parking available?

Tenants

Check out the other tenants in the building or office complex you will be leasing in. Find out how long they have occupied the building. Ask if they are on good terms with the landlord. Find out if their experiences as tenants have been largely satisfactory. Inquire about insurance premiums, building security, and cleaning services for the building.

Handicap access

Check to see if the building you are considering leasing in meets with handicap access regulations, including appropriate bathroom facilities. Make sure your office space has been designed so that physically challenged employees can easily move around and are afforded an opportunity to be fully productive.

Public transport

If on-street or off-street parking is limited or unavailable, locating your business in close proximity to public transportation takes on added significance. Public transportation accessibility can even be used as an advertising tool to attract customers.

Expansion

If you are attracted to a particular office space but envision remodeling that space to suit your needs—building partitions for work cubicles or removing walls to open up a reception area—make sure the landlord has no objections. Get permission in writing. And see if you can negotiate a reduction in the lease payments in exchange for doing the remodeling work yourself.

Utilities

Find out what the typical costs are for heating, electricity, and air conditioning in an office space similar to the one you are considering within the same building. Ask either the landlord or other building occupants for copies of the last six month’s utility bills. Inquire about required new account deposits from each of the utility companies you will be using. If you have a prior billing history with any of the utility companies, you may not need to submit a deposit.

You have three basic choices in office floor plans: division by partition, open office, or individual, closed rooms. A combination of any of these floor plans is also a possibility.

Partitions

Open offices divided by partitions were in vogue at many large corporations in the 1960s and 1970s. The advantage to this space design configuration is that its flexible nature offers the chance for change while, at the same time, affords a moderate level of visual and aural privacy. No one is looking directly at another employee and conversations can be conducted without fear of being overheard.

There are a wide range of partition systems available. They can be extremely elaborate and complex or inexpensive and simple.

Open floor plan

Another approach to organizing space is the open design. It isn’t extremely common, but many newspaper offices and banks have embraced the open office concept and have their employees working openly side by side.

This design creates a strong feeling of community among workers, but suffers the drawbacks of noise and visual confusion.

Closed rooms

Closed rooms can be a very expensive office design option. This option doesn’t offer the flexibility of either the partitioned or open space plans. It does offer the ultimate in privacy, however.

If you go for this plan, be sure to get the landlord’s permission to complete any construction work required to meet your needs.

Combination

Some combination of the partitioned, open, and closed room floor plans is another approach. You might have, for example, completely open areas for secretarial or support staff, partitioned cubicles for mid-level employees, and closed areas for senior staff.

Functionality

Functionality is an important consideration when considering office design. The first functional aspect that you need to address is noise reduction. Your employees need to be able to hear clearly in order to effectively conduct phone conversations. You need to place fax machines, copiers, and other loud equipment out of the way and out of earshot.

You also need to create nice passageways that allow employees ease of movement from one area of the office to another. These pathways should also provide efficient traffic patterns.

Don’t forget to group people together according to their functional need to interface with each other.

Customer perspective

A customer’s impression of your office space as he or she first walks in the door is critical. The same holds true for employees, and especially for new hires.

Consider creating a waiting area at your entranceway. It can be very simple, yet still welcoming, comfortable, and professional. All you really need is a couple of nice chairs and a table.

A meeting room may also be important in your business. This room should be as impressive as possible even if you can’t afford to go all out designing and furnishing other areas of your office space. Set up a nice room near the reception area with a conference table and nice chairs. This will give any customer a good feeling about your organization.

Assigning space

Assigning space to personnel can be an incredible political football, even among employees who don’t typically get riled. Seasoned employees have been known to fight tooth and nail for that window spot or the biggest office space. This is an issue of prestige, of course, and many employees link space allotment to the direction of their career paths.

The best approach is to make the assignments and have that be the end of the story. Make it clear that you have given the assignments careful thought, and this is simply the plan you have devised and will be sticking to. Do try to give each person adequate space in which to carry out his or her job. And anticipate the objections any given individual may have. Cut complainers off at the pass. If you don’t assign space decisively, people are going to grab whatever space they can or they are going to whine and complain. Either way, it will be a headache for you.

Also, decide in advance to what extent employees will be allowed to decorate their space, paint the walls, or hang photographs or posters. In short, set guidelines for personalizing office space. You don’t want to find yourself in the uncomfortable position of requesting the removal of any decorative elements because they clash with the office design concept.

Creating the design

Start by making a quick, rough sketch of your office design layout and concept with pencil and paper. Then you might want to flesh your scheme out by using space layout software or creating a more detailed sketch.

Use a scale for the sketch—x inches equals x square feet—or do your layout on a gridded chart. Before you move in and start knocking down walls or dragging desks about, take out the tape measure and mark walls, corridors, partitions, and desks in with masking tape. Bring your employees in to discuss the layout. This creates a feeling of community, and the group’s approval on a final layout alleviates the possibility of major space wars on move-in day.