Functionality: Things to be considered when Space Planning.
By Bernie Fairchild
What is the most important aspect in your mind about planning your office space? I don’t know about you but I would say the function of your office personnel is job one. The purpose of office space, in my mind, is to facilitate the work you want to do for your customers, clients or audience. This work needs to be done efficiently, effectively and result in a product or service that you want to put your company’s name on. To do this, one must consider all aspects within each person’s job function to have each spoke in the wheel support a common purpose.
Individual Planning
We are all different and have different performance methods; some prefer to spread their work out so that things are in piles in front of them, others prefer to keep organized file folders, still others require materials to be stored for easy access, and yet still others are more technology based. So then the question becomes; how do I incorporate all these aspects into one plan that works well?
Team Efforts
No man is an island. Gotta believe that….right? We all require the help of other people to function within our business environment. This involves collaboration with employees, associates, vendors, customers, instructors and /or students. To facilitate and coordinate these team functions may require different work flow processes. Some may require an easy interactive paper handling environment, others may require a verbally communicative environment and still others may have a need for open group collaboration. Whatever the requirements, the solution is in the answer to the question how do we address each of these needs in a productive manner? Planning with this question in mind can be an asset in developing an outstanding team collaborative environment.
Privacy
Nobody likes loss…. right? One of the biggest causes of loss in productivity at the workplace is distraction. While working within an open space planned office, overhearing a conversation about last night’s TV program, or someone’s recipe for Sunday night dinner can stop production in its tracks. Conversely, having too much privacy can cut off the creative life blood of the company that comes from the exchange of ideas. So the question that begs to be answered is how do we balance privacy and still maintain interaction?
These and other mistakes have plagued office environments since the time someone said let’s play office. Space planning is a key aspect to getting the job done well. And like any job the key components are having the proper tools to do the job and the knowledge and understanding of how to use these tools can make a world of difference.
For more information and help with planning a more functionally productive office, visit officeremix.com or contact your Office Remix office consultant at 954-801-9920.
