Planning for the correct amount of storage

Understand what you are storing, why you are storing it and make sure it’s not just a catch all place for all the indecision’s your staff make. Storage is too often used to conceal clutter. Effective storage creates efficiencies while creating an environment that is both esthetically appealing and practical.  Different storage solutions can provide time saving functionality that boosts productivity and frees up space for other office uses.

Getting employee input

The right office design will help make your business run better.

Involve employees in deciding how the space will look and feel. Employees often have insights into what an operation needs and may have that wasn’t obvious before but may prove valuable. Their involvement in decision-making gives them a voice in something meaningful which increases engagement and improves performance.

Talk to your employees and ask how the old space has worked. Which features have been good or bad, and why do they feel that way? Don’t assume the old layout is necessarily the best to help drive business. Also consider letting employees name common areas such as conference rooms. That way, they can put their stamp on the space.

If you have the time and resources, consider setting up some common work areas, each decorated in one of the color schemes most popular among employees. They can then try the different settings to see how they feel about them.

Besides giving employees a voice in the new office’s aesthetics, encourage them to discuss practicalities, too. Ask for a wish list of items for the new space, such as a coffee bar or certain type of storage, which could help make work a better place to be.

Plan for growth

It’s hard to know the future. Often, we are planning to grow, but just how much, how many more staff and what’s the time frame.

When you’re designing your office with growth in mind, it’s important to look at ways in which space can be reconfigured to accommodate differing team sizes. 

It’s crucial to incorporate adaptable, flexible spaces into your present office design. These spaces can be used for ad-hoc meetings or general relaxation areas for existing staff but can also be re purposed as more formal workspace when necessary or for events and presentations.

Think carefully about your office furniture too. Once you have invested all your money in your latest technology or spent a fortune on the best talent, it might be tempting to skimp on the furniture budget. 

Not enough open and/or private spaces

One of the most significant decisions in developing a company’s culture relates to the division of office space. Open space, division into offices, team-based division, mixed offices, a small or a big kitchen – each one of these decisions will affect the way the company functions.

In theory, an open space office sounds like a great idea – an open atmosphere, accessibility for everyone and, of course, an optimal utilization of space. Most open spaces are usually quite noisy and are not that conducive to actual discussions. Many people are easily distracted by every phone call, joke or noise around them.

Acoustics

New open concept designs are often filled with hard surfaces like polished concrete, open ceilings and lots of glass, that give a wonderful open feeling to spaces. But there is downside – increased noise levels.

When noise enters the workspace, creativity and productivity go out the window.  That’s why manufactures of office furniture have thrown themselves into designing elements that limit and absorb excessive noise, creating pleasant workspaces that improve performance. The trend for open-plan designs, particularly in new workspaces, has put sound at the forefront of design.

D.J. McGauley & Associates Inc. is your Office Space Planning, Renovations and Relocation Project Management Company of Choice for the Toronto, GTA and surrounding areas. If a renovation or relocation of your 2,000 – 25,000 sq.ft. office space is in your plans, contact us to arrange a no-obligation site meeting. We guarantee that by the end of that meeting, you will know all that would be required to make your office renovation/relocation project a successful reality.

Call 416-239-1931, email [email protected] or visit our website for more information and to complete our contact form.

Among the many office space design trends that currently exist, the open office space design has been the one popular design choice spanning several industries to encourage collaboration among staff and put all employees on an equal playing…or I should say, working field. But no matter how attractive the open office space design is to today’s organizations, there is always that looming need to create quiet areas or areas of privacy to handle regular business operation tasks such as making client phone calls meetings. Traditional offices closures and conference rooms have been the solutions to date, but a new solution is coming over the office space design horizon that more closely fits with the open office design concept.

Introducing office pods.

• They offer flexibility to an office space design. Office pods are not enclosures that are fixed to a building. They are in fact portable or mobile, so like furniture, they can be placed anywhere inside or outside the office area—wherever best compliments the open office space design.
• Office pods are modular by nature, therefore can be dismantled, moved and reassembled from one office location to the next. They can even be easily extended to grow as your company grows.
• Office pods come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours, therefore can be creatively designed to complement the office space design theme of your organization.
• Office pods offer full and partial enclosure options. The full enclosure office pods, similar to an enclosed office or conference room, are ideal for business meetings, conference calls, and other operational tasks that require one’s full and uninterrupted attention. The partial enclosure office pods–sometimes referred to as office booths–offer opportunity for staff to still collaborate or find a quiet space work or relax in an open setting but with less noise interruption from surrounding office activities.
• Office pods can have a combination of clear, glazed and/or solid coloured walls to further compliment or enhance the office space design theme while still maintaining a balance between open office space design and the need to respect confidentiality.
• Office pods are self-contained portable sound proof enclosures created for the sole purpose of providing a quiet space or place of privacy in the midst of an open office space design.

Office pods offer several benefits:

So, if your current or future office space design is one of an open concept but you still want to allow for areas of quietness or privacy for your staff’s and overall business’ well-being, or your landlord forbids fixed reconstruction of an office space, adding office pods to your office space design could be the best solution.

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D.J. McGauley & Associates Inc. is your Office Space Planning, Renovations and Relocation Project Management Company of Choice for the Toronto, GTA and surrounding areas. If a renovation or relocation of your 2,000 – 25,000 sq.ft. office space is in your plans, contact us to arrange a no-obligation site meeting. We guarantee that by the end of that meeting, you will know all that would be required to make your office renovation/relocation project a successful reality.

Call 416-239-1931, email [email protected] or visit our website for more information and to complete our contact form.

References:

Urban office Interiors, Office Pods, https://www.urban-office.com/podscreens.html

OfficePod, OfficePod Lift the Lid on Dead Space, http://www.officepod.co.uk/about-officepod/

What was once considered a reason to permanently relieve a person from their duties if done at work is now slowly being re-looked at by companies as just one more way to promote well-being and increased productivity among staff members. I am referring to sleep. And with the introduction of sleeping pods in an office space, staff catching up on lost sleep during their break or lunch hours, will be much more easily facilitated.

What are sleeping pods? In short, they are self contained units built for one, and designed for the sole purpose of allowing its user a private place to nap. Similar to office pods, sleeping pods are portable, sound proof, and can either be fully or partially enclosed. Some sleeping pods are even stackable, therefore allowing multiple units to be in an office space without taking up a large amount of its real estate.

Inspired by space and submarine sleeping capsules, sleeping pods at minimum include some form of mattress or bed upon which the user can lay down horizontally and rest. Some sleeping pods, however, can be outfitted with shelving for personal items, a radio, CD or DVD player and/or television to keep the individual entertained while in resting position.

Why introduce the option to sleep at work? According to Global Dean of Research, Ashridge Executive Education, Hult International Business School, Vicki Culpi, “Memory, attention, decision making, creativity and innovative thinking, highly relevant skills in the work environment, have all been shown to be affected by poor sleep, and the effects can appear after only a few nights of poor sleep. In addition, chronic sleep restriction, over longer periods of time, have been linked to diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.” Affording employees the opportunity to “disconnect and recharge” in a sleeping pod, even for just 15 minutes, has shown improvement in all of the above areas as well as promoted an increase in productivity, creativity and innovation among staff.

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D.J. McGauley & Associates Inc. is your Office Space Planning, Renovations and Relocation Project Management Company of choice. If a renovation or relocation of your office space is in your plans, please contact us to arrange a no-obligation site meeting. By the end of that meeting, you will know all that would be required to make your office renovation/relocation project a successful reality.

Call 416-239-1931, email [email protected] or visit our website for more information and to complete our contact form.

References:

Ross, Eleanor, Virgin.com, Feb 1, 2016, “Are sleeping pods about to become commonplace in offices?”, https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/are-sleeping-pods-about-become-commonplace-offices

It is amazing to see how vastly different meeting spaces are these days compared to what they were years ago. There was a time when business meetings took place in an enclosed rectangular-shaped room with one rectangular-shaped window to the outside world, a long solid rectangular-shaped table and several hi-backed rectangular-shaped office chairs. Now, with emphasis on encouraging collaboration, innovation, and creativity in an open-spaced environment, and incorporating the cafe or home decor themes into office spaces, meeting spaces have gone through several phases to take on entirely new forms. A few of those phases are listed below:

Phase 1: No Longer Rectangular

Enclosed meeting spaces designed to maintain an element of confidentiality are no longer restricted to the four walls of a rectangular-shaped room. With the introduction of office pods, meeting spaces have taken on dome, beehive, cylinder, egg and other interesting geometric shapes. Add in the home-decor theme and you’ve got the greenhouse, living room and large kitchen-inspired meeting spaces within the office space.

Phase 2: No longer Enclosed

Then there are meeting spaces that are relatively open or semi-private spaces. Designed more for encouraging collaboration, these meeting spaces typically have partial walls or partitions, and are open at least on two sides. Some of these collaborative meeting spaces take on the form of a booth, similar to what you would see at a restaurant. Others adopt more of a picture-framed look. More recent designs combine the booth with the framed looked by extending the back rest of the booth to form a roof frame over its potential users.

Phase 3: No more walls

Finally, there are those meeting spaces that are just out in the open. Identified by the furniture placement and possibly an area rug, these types of meeting spaces aim to promote collaboration without tainting the open space office design in any way.

The most unique meeting space gaining popularity is the amphitheater-designed meeting space. Unlike any other meeting space design, the amphitheater meeting space is literally the large and wide staircase found in the prominent area of an office space. Why is this design gaining popularity? Because it is familiar for the younger workforce and recent graduates entering the workforce. (By the way, designers are now looking to schools to see how those designs and layouts could be incorporated into the office space design).

The future phases of meeting spaces may incorporate more geometric shapes or adopt nature’s most common meeting spaces. Regardless, meeting spaces will always play an integral role in facilitating the future success of businesses.

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D.J. McGauley & Associates Inc. is your Office Space Planning, Renovations and Relocation Project Management Company of choice. If a renovation or relocation of your office space is in your plans, please contact us to arrange a no-obligation site meeting. By the end of that meeting, you will know all that would be required to make your office renovation/relocation project a successful reality.

Call 416-239-1931, email [email protected] or visit our website for more information and to complete our contact form.

It’s very easy for office space designers to offer their suggestions on how one can improve the look and feel of their office space. However, really good office space designers need to be like customer service representatives–they need to take the time to find out who you are and what needs you want addressed before presenting their solutions to you.

In fact, some really good office space designers actually exude of the traits of great CSRs.

They are great probers and listeners. Great office space designers not only ask questions but take time to listen to their clients in order to gain a full understanding of an organization’s “personality” vision, mission and goals.

Great office space designers are patient when interacting with clients who may not be able to clearly communicate the details of their ideal office space as well as when coming up with the ideal design to make that optimal office space a reality.

Great office space designers are good time managers, aiming to deliver the best office designs for their clients’ approval on time and within budget.

Great office space designers are solution-oriented, developing designs that creatively address the unique challenges and operations of each client they serve.

Great office space designers are client-focused, keeping their client’s vision, mission, goals and “personality” at the core of each layout they develop.

Great office space designers are knowledgeable in their field of design and in the industries in which they chose to serve. They not only need to know how to draw up an office design, but they need to be fully aware of any limitations an office space may have as well as all building code standards.

Finally, great office space designers are committed. They are committed to providing quality solutions to office space needs through their designs as well as all around quality service to their clientele.

So, if your designer exudes the above CSR traits, you can rest assured that you have a great office space designer.

DJ McGauley and Associates Inc. is your Office Move, Reconstruction and Reconfiguration Project Management Company of choice for the Toronto, GTA and surrounding areas. If an office move or reconstruction of your 2000 – 25,000 sqft office space is a remote possibility, consider contacting us to arrange a no-obligation site meeting. We guarantee that by the end of that meeting you will know all that would be required to make your office move/reconstruction project a successful reality.

Call 416-239-1931 , email [email protected], or visit our website to complete our contact form.