October 27th, 2014, By Don Catalano
Designing an office floor plan is not like it used to be. Once, you set up a reception area with a conference room off of it, put the most senior employees in the corners with big offices, the middle people on the glass line with smaller offices, and everyone else in the middle in a mix of offices and cubes. Today, work spaces vary a great deal from company to company and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. There are some rules of thumb that you can follow; here are 6 tips to help with that decision.
Offices change. Growing is relatively easy, but shrinking an office space can be harder to do. With this in mind, design around your entry and egress points. For instance, if you have a rectangular space, you might want to build from one door towards the other with all of the necessary amenities close to one door. That way, if your needs change, you can adjust your office floor plan by cutting off the space by the far door.
Your company doesn’t need an open floor plan or a closed floor plan. It just needs the right office floor plan. Most offices today need a mix of open spaces, private spaces and semi-private collaborative spaces. Furthermore, spaces should get assigned by rank. An entry-level financial analyst might need a private office in which to concentrate on his spreadsheets, while a middle manager might be best at an open desk where she can more easily collaborate with (and watch!) her team.
Traditional offices and modern work styles don’t mesh well. Walk down a row of offices and you will usually see mostly empty desks — Joe’s working from home, Susan is in Des Moines for the week with a client, Charlie is working with his project team in a conference room and Michele is at her desk, but only for two hours a day. Instead, design an office where people can work where they need to when they need to. When workers need a permanent space, give it to them, but hotelling arrangements are productive and space efficient.
Walled offices and tight hallways are a thing of the past. On the other hand, a wide-open floor plan can seem hangar-like and impersonal. Half-walls that people can see over and three-sided rooms that are open on one end allow you to impose a semblance of order on your office floor plan without stifling too much collaboration.
The less that you build and the more that you place, the easier it will be to make your office floor plan conform to changing needs. For instance, if you built out large cubes to accommodate multiple file cabinets and bulky CRT monitors, today’s workers will waste most of that space. The built-in espresso bar in your break room seems like a good idea today, but in five years when everyone wants a milk car, you’ll have to rip it out if you want to stay current. Office furniture is easy to buy, easy to move and easy to change. Embrace it.
While everyone talks about wireless as the wave of the future, including generous wiring in your office floor plan is another way to boost productivity. Wireless devices still need power, and the more data traffic that you can carry on Ethernet or fiber, the less congestion you have on Wi-Fi and 4G networks.