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Business Start
source by: businesstown.com
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.
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