Workspace is not just one of the costliest business expenses — especially in certain parts of the country like the Chicagoland area — but it is also among her riskiest. This is because unlike other costs such as telecommunications systems or computer networks, workspace is not scalable: businesses that sign a lease (or pay a commercial mortgage) for a fixed number of square feet must pay the agreed upon amount each month. The price is fixed, whether the space is optimized or not.
Considering this, whether they are proverbially “bursting at the seams” or simply want to get more value from their real estate investment, here are 3 space saving office design ideas that every business should keep in mind — and many should implement in order to avoid having to relocate:
1. Create an open office environment.
An open office environment is one in which cross-functional teams (e.g. sales, marketing, administration, etc.) are co-located in a single space. In addition to enabling collaboration and interaction, open office environments can accommodate significantly more employees due to the reduction or elimination of walls, cubicle partitions, etc.
2. Create stand-up meeting spaces.
Stand-up meetings have been around for decades in the agile software development world, where various employees (e.g. engineers, developers, QA, etc.) gather around each morning for a quick and focused update on the day ahead. More recently however, the rest of the business landscape has discovered that this concept translates very effectively across all industries and sectors. As such, instead of allocating premium space to formal meeting rooms that might be used a few times a week or month, businesses are creating stand-up meeting spaces that require a fraction of the space, and can be repurposed for other uses as required, such as training, presentations, etc.
Note that while some businesses are exclusively using stand-up meeting spaces, many are implementing both formal meeting rooms and stand-up meeting spaces, since that is what they need — which still results in a significant increase in usable workspace, since formal meeting rooms can (thanks to the existence of stand-up meeting spaces) be fewer in number and/or smaller in size.
3. Wage war against clutter.
Just like it does in homes, clutter can deceptively — but dramatically — reduce the size of functional and usable space. However, unlike a residential setting, businesses that lose the battle against clutter are more than inconvenienced: they waste thousands of dollars a month.
There are many ways to wage war and defeat clutter, including switching to an all-digital environment (little or no paper), installing shelves above workspaces, moving excess items into off-site storage (e.g. furniture, wall coverings, etc.), and establishing policies so that employees can be part of the anti-clutter movement.
Learn More
To learn more about getting much more value and use from your existing workspace, contact the Key Interiors team today. While we are not magicians, you will be nevertheless amazed at how much usable, functional, employee-centric, and visually appealing space we can “free up” in your environment.
For more information on office design ideas and to determine if an open and collaborative approach is right for you, download our FREE eBook:
{{cta(‘6e7c4d88-eb76-4ed9-a6e1-b7c61d98ca99’)}}
