5 Steps to a Successful Office Move or Refurbishment
New ways of working have led to changes in staff expectations, work routines, and business processes. This has created pressure to create a work environment that adapts to evolving habits and behaviours.
When considering an office move or refurbishment, it’s important to think about whether to stay or go. Does your current office space meet ways of working, team growth and company goals? Can you adapt your current space through a refurbishment to increase suitability?
After deciding whether to stay or go, there are 5 important steps to follow for an office fit-out or refurbishment. These steps will help you ensure that you finish your project on schedule, within budget, and meet the required standards.
1. Define your needs
Planning should start immediately after you have identified the need for either an office fit-out of office refurbishment. Professional input from an external consultant can be a huge help during your office fit-out. Depending on your concerns, you may wish to speak to IT experts, acousticians or audio-visual engineers. External consultants may also aid in challenging accepted norms and manage expectations.
2. Develop a design brief
A strong design brief will serve you well throughout your project, keeping your fit-out specialist aligned with the design needs for your workplace. Your design brief should detail;
- Vision & objectives
- Brand values
- Technology requirements
- Specialist requirements (storage, security, on-site facilities)
- Environmental considerations
- Acoustics
After creating a design brief, a feasibility study should be done to check if the design and project plan are practical.
3. Calculate your budget
Your office is likely to be one of your largest overheads, and an office move or refurbishment one of your largest expenditures.
Determining the size requirements of your new office space can be the first indicator to how much your office fit-out will cost. If you are unsure how much space you need to accommodate your current team or future growth, our Office Space Calculator can help.
4. Build your fit-out or refurbishment team
Choosing a team or partner is essential for a successful workspace fit-out or refurbishment project. Your fit-out/refurbishment team should consist of both internal and external parties including the following;
Project coordinator: Electing an external project coordinator can reduce your workload and ensure that the fit-out remains under control and expectations are managed.
- Internal team: To ensure everyone’s needs are met, your internal team should consist of personnel from each division in the company who should liaise with the wider team and external project coordinator to ensure expectations are managed and your team remain informed throughout the fit-out.
- Commercial property agent: Your property agent will be able to analyse any financial implications, assess your current building contract and the implications of your vacating the property and negotiate on your behalf.
- Finance & HR team: To better understand the potential result of expanding, downsizing or staying in your current space, your finance team should draw up a 3 year headcount forecast.
- Dilapidations Expert: A dilapidations expert will prepare a building survey report for you, which will outline what sections of your lease have been breached, specifically what repairs, alterations or decorative works should be carried out by the tenants.
- Legal representatives: Appointing a property solicitor can help avoid costly and complicated property transactions, as they can advise on lease obligations such as your notice period.
- IT/AV consultants: Conduct an appraisal of your existing systems and either appoint an IT/AV consultant or speak to your internal team.
- Workplace strategists: Opting in for a workplace study can aid identifying the optimum brief for your next office space. At ODGroup, we combine our knowledge, your experiences and actual data to give you the best platform to make informed choices for the next step of your workplace journey.
- Sustainability & Wellbeing: Appointing a Sustainability & Wellbeing consultant can help ensure your office design complies with regulatory requirements.
- Acoustic Consultants: An acoustic consultant can provide expertise on how sound moves through space to help design and modify rooms in accordance with privacy needs.
- Fit-Out Partner: Appointing a fit-out partner is essential to ensuring the successful completion of your project.ODGroup are committed to helping you make successful space. Our specialist teams have a proven track record of partnering with companies across a wide range of sectors, understanding and realising their needs through best-in-class design, construction, furniture procurement, workplace consultancy, aftercare services and Day 2 works.
5. Manage your move
Navigating your move can be tricky and may result in important elements being missed. To take the stress out of your move, we have listed some of the likely traps you could fall in to during your office move, and how to avoid them.
- Internet lead times: Factoring in internet lead times, including the time needed to agree a wayleave with the landlord is an element of the office move that is often overlooked.
- Packing and storage: Packing up your equipment and belongings or moving things in to storage can consume more time than you think! Use your team leaders to help navigate the order in which things should be packed or stored.
- Poor communication with your team: Failing to communicate with your team can raise speculation and confusion on the move, making the transition more difficult. Communicate with your team as early as possible to avoid confusion!
- Poor communication with clients: It is important to ensure you communicate your move with your clients so that they are aware of your new address and how to contact you via mail.
What to remember:
- Engage your team throughout your office move or refurb, giving regular updates and building excitement around the project.
- Don’t forget the small stuff like changing the address for your milk delivery, updating your website, organising a redirection for your post, etc,.
- Consider behavioural changes that you might like to make alongside the physical changes, for example, more recycling, better meeting room etiquette, etc,.
- Pay close attention to dilapidation requirements in both your existing and new lease.
Looking for expert advice on how to start your office move or refurbishment? Get in touch with our project consultants to discuss your requirement.
