As time goes by and companies change their priorities, they often find their office spaces unsuitable for their current requirements. The realities of the COVID-19 pandemic and the necessity for keeping the social distance only made this problem more apparent. Companies usually try to deal with these issues by moving to another address where they will have more room to put their ideas into motion.

However, such a transition takes too much time, money, and lost productivity to be pulled off. Let's see if we can offer a couple of fitout ideas that will help you to get the same results and use the office space more efficiently without relocating to a new location.

Take care of the lighting

First and foremost, try to make most of the natural light since it has a very positive effect on the health and overall mood of your employees. If possible, make sure the windows are facing north since you will be able to avoid hot temperatures and afternoon glare during the summer months. If not, remember that mirrors and gentle colors do an excellent job in opening up the space and dispersing the colors through the premises. As for the artificial lights, cool tones, the clinical cool tones are the best pick for the rooms where people need to concentrate.

Look for the creative storage solutions

Ideally, you should move the complete company infrastructure to Cloud and eliminate paper documents altogether. However, you will still have a need for some sort of storage and creative storage solutions can be found all around your offices. So, try ordering custom shelves for customs spaces that can’t fit prefabricated units, find free spots you can use as cubby holes, leverage the empty vertical space with hanging shelves, and get the furniture pieces that have built-in storage units. These small touches will keep the basic office needs covered.

Create dynamic multi-purpose spaces

The workplace offices are rarely utilized 100%. This deficiency can be easily solved if you create an environment that will be flexible and used for different purposes in different instances. Achieving this level of efficiency will probably require ordering some reliable commercial fitouts, but even on your own, you will be able to introduce a couple of small touches. You can start by eliminating cubicles, opening up the space, and getting pieces like movable and fold-out desks, workstations that can be combined into shared space, and stackable chairs.

Invest into sustainability

Performing an office fitout is an excellent opportunity to address countless design quirks ranging from branding to ergonomics. However, improving the sustainability of the offices should be your absolute priority since you will make your company efficient and start making room for future investments. Start by replacing the old lighting system with the latest-gen LED systems that will produce a stronger and less tiring output while using only 10% of the power. New equipment with better energy ratings is another reasonably affordable move to make.

Tear down the walls

As we mentioned earlier, one of the goals of your next office fitout will be to create an open space, a multipurpose design where your employees will be able to freely roam between the stations, move furniture around, spontaneously engage in collaboration, and use the available space to the maximum potential. In order to do this, you will probably need to tear down some walls and make room for your project. If you need some sort of boundaries that will separate the different areas, you can build them up with furniture and storage units.

Choose a design pattern and stick to

Ideally, that pattern should fit the overall branding and purpose of your company. For instance, a legal practice should keep a certain level of professionalism that is expected from a company of this type. Otherwise, your employees will start getting mixed messages and the space will lose its efficiency. Also, it is important that, once you find the design that works for your company, use it at every instance to create visual harmony and allow the workers to retain the same mindset even if they, at some point, change the workspace.

So, there you have it – a couple of simple tips and ideas that will help you to fit out and accomplish a higher level of efficiency without having to go through the pain of changing the premises. At some point, companies need to scale up or simply change their priorities so drastically their old offices are no longer suitable. Overhauling the offices helps you retain all the benefits you previously had, while still getting that extra ounce of untapped potential you needed.

Written by Carolin Petterson

 

About the Author

Carolin Petterson is a Business Lady and contributor for number of high-class websites. She loves to share her experiences and talk about practical solutions, but her specialties are sustainability, sustainable business and green living.

 

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