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Are your office premises starting to look tired and dated? Have some departments expanded and others contracted? Do you need to integrate modern technology into your workplace better, and make provision for future business growth?

If any or all of these factors apply, it is likely you will be looking to arrange an office refurbishment – but the next question is where to begin. As experts with many years of experience, Thames Contracts have put together a ten step guide to help you through the refurb maze.

Whole Space Planning

Start off by looking at the entire office environment, beyond your current priorities. Although it can be tempting just to fix the most obvious problems, addressing one or two issues in isolation may have spin-off effects. For instance, if you install equipment such as printers or a breakout area without considering noise, this could damage the working environment and have a negative impact on productivity.

Space planning requires special expertise from your office fitout contractor, to ensure all aspects of your offices are looked at together, with interactions between different departments taken into account, as well as dealings with suppliers and customers.

Get Buy-In

An office refurbishment will involve upheaval for everyone, so it is important to involve all your staff from the start. Getting everyone to co-operate will help to keep the company running well during the changeover period.

This means you need to keep people informed at key stages and let them know how the new design will affect them. However, communication needs to be a two-way process. Before plans are cut and dried, take the time to find out what people want from the refurb. Getting staff input can highlight important design requirements that will make the new-look offices work better in the long run. For a complex refurb, it helps to choose a contractor who can provide visualisations for people to look at.

Also, if you are renting office space, ensure that the landlord is fully consulted and necessary permissions gained at all stages. This will help to ensure there are no unnecessary delays to the work or even legal problems.

Ongoing Cost Savings

When budgeting for your office refurbishment, as well as the initial outlay, you also need to consider a range of costs going forward. These include:

Energy Costs – Designing in energy saving measures as part of the refurb can bring major long term savings. Doing this will also help the planet – and underline your organisation’s green credentials. Look at heating and air conditioning systems, for instance using waste heat to heat water, as well as ways of making the best use of natural light, and energy reduction technology for computers and machinery. Also consider installing an energy monitoring system for the building as a whole.

Maintenance Costs and Durability – Choice of materials and fittings can help reduce maintenance costs. Some materials and finishes also stand up to wear and tear of office life better than others. This means that the furnishings which look cheapest at the outset may not be the most economic option in the medium to long term. It could be worth spending a little more now to have an office which still looks good in 10 years.

Get Up to Speed

Office design and materials have advanced greatly in the past decade, with many innovative products and techniques now available. It pays to educate yourself about these new possibilities to ensure the best possible fitout, and ensure your offices don’t quickly become outdated.

As well as doing your own research, it helps to choose a contractor who can talk you through the options and who has experience working with the latest materials and technologies. Ask them to show you examples of recent work, to help you understand the options available.

The Right Atmosphere

A successful office fitout is not just about getting the right number of workstations into the space available. It’s about creating a working environment which encourages the right kind of mental focus among staff and creates the right impression for potential clients. What might be right for a creative media company won’t be appropriate for a firm of accountants.

Your desired atmosphere needs to be defined as part of the planning stage, informing all choices, from office layout to choice of materials, colour scheme and styles of furniture. The reception area is especially important, as the face of your company. It needs to have a positive impact on visitors and clients, as well as your own employees, putting across key messages about company values. Think about including branding in this area, for instance through incorporating company logos into glass manifestation. This can be especially important for startups establishing an identity or for established firms that have amalgamated or changed focus.

Build in Futureproofing

As well as considering your company’s current needs when planning your refurb, it pays to look ahead. Building in an element of futureproofing means the refurb will have many more years of use in it, saving costs in the longer term.

This means anticipating future needs, such as an increase in employees, which could mean you will need to slot in extra workstations, kitchen and washroom facilities. You also need to think about trends like the growth in flexible working and home working, and facilities needed to accommodate staff working in these ways. Future storage needs and technology requirements, such as additional power, telephony, cabling and networking, equally need to be borne in mind, together with possible changes in company focus. Some areas could be fitted out with flexibility in mind, so that they can easily be adapted to another use.

Ensure Compliance

Regulations and legislation may not be the most exciting aspects of an office refurb, but are vital nevertheless. You need to make sure all rules are complied with, to avoid having to pay for work to be redone or even facing a fine.

Anybody setting out on an office design and build project will have to wade through building regulations, fire regulations and health and safety legislation, including DSE workstation requirements for screen users. Equally important are directives on energy efficiency, such as the Energy Performance of Buildings 2006 Directive and CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. It is also essential to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act, even if you have no employees or customers with disabilities at the present time.

Complying with all relevant regulations can pose a major headache for companies trying to organise a refurb themselves. This makes it all the more essential to choose a contractor who will provide an end-to-end service, from stripping out existing office and facilities to installing new plumbing, electrical and building work, ensuring compliance throughout.

Minimise Disruption

Inevitably, any building work within an office will cause disruption, but the aim is to keep this to a minimum. This means finding a contractor with an established track record of completing works on time. Ideally choose a contractor who has full control over all trades involved in the work, to avoid the risk of being let down by third-party contractors midway through works.

Beyond this, try to ensure the works have minimal impact on everyday business, for instance by postponing major client meetings or holding them elsewhere. Phasing the work so that the whole office isn’t out of action for a long time could be another way to make things go more smoothly. Where possible, you might also be able to relieve pressure on office space by allowing some people to work from home during the refurbishment period.

Consider Creature Comforts

Most businesses will want a sound business case for paying for a refurb, which will tend to focus on quantifiable aspects such as occupancy rates and cost savings. However, morale and productivity are important factors for a business too, and employees’ comfort and welfare at work feed into these.

This means issues such as noise, privacy, lighting, heating and air conditioning all need to be considered as parts of an office refurb, together with facilities such as washrooms, kitchens and informal meeting areas. Paying attention to employee comfort sends a strong message which can impact on morale and staff recruitment and retention.

Choose Your Contractor Carefully

Last but not least, your choice of contractor will influence how successfully you are able to implement all the above points. The ideal is to pick a firm with experience of carrying out similar projects, who can manage the whole project from start to finish. They will be able to take on board your business priorities and those of your staff in planning the space and drawing up accurate costings and timetables.

Ask your contractor for examples of other work they have carried out and speak to previous customers to give you confidence. An expert firm will be able to guide you through ways to keep costs down, while at the same time ensuring quality and creating an office space geared to the needs of your business, both now and in the future. Thames Contracts fits the bill on all these points, as a company with many years of experience of office fitouts in the London area.