Take a look around your office space.  Is your space placing you at a competitive advantage not only now but for the future?

When you think of office space planning in terms of future growth, words like adjustable and flexible should come to mind. By adding flexibility into your office design, not only will you be prepared for the future, but it will maximize the efficiency of your space and add up to huge cost reduction.  A recent survey stated that 51 percent of workspace is underutilized.  Because this waste is rather significant, it is important to evaluate your space usage and develop a workspace solution to support long-term growth and flexibility, profitability and employee recruitment and retention.

To add flexibility into your space try to take your open office plan to the next level.  Think about creating a space that allows for a combination of private offices, cubicles, collaborative areas and quiet areas too. This can be accomplished through design elements like movable walls and reconfigurable furniture, glass panels and offices to create more transparency and adding hoteling or bench seating. By incorporating these features into your space, there are two important benefits.

COST REDUCTION

For a long time, the trend was to determine space per employee, which was a fixed amount of space.  As most companies have moved to an open office plan, the way space is defined has changed. No longer do your employees need (or want) a dedicated area, so the space per employee decreases dramatically leading to reduced corporate real estate costs.    

EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

According to a recent survey conducted by Gensler, by creating a work environment that allows employees to the options of collaborative and solo working areas results in a high-performance workplace where employee satisfaction increases by an average of 12 percent.

Through strategic planning and evaluation of your space, you can create a space to reflect your changing needs as a company.  With these changes, employee satisfaction and productivity will increase and profitability will follow.