‘Location, location, location’. The estate agents love to tell us, when it comes to buying real estate, it’s all about location.
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“Sign here on the dotted line please Sir?” To which the company director fervently signs, ecstatic he has finally got proper business premises and his company really is going places!
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Long gone are the days when one serviced office looked almost identical to the next, with clusters of workstations nestled together defining one team from another and doing little to nurture cross-department collaboration.
Today flexibility is at the core of modern working ethics and none more so than when it comes to office layout. As we wrote about in our blog titled ‘What type of Office Space Layout is the Most Productive?’ design experts generally believe a mix of spaces is preferable as diverse office layouts and design will “suit various individuals and teams who are working on different tasks.”
While a diversely laid out office might be ideal to, as Google says, “create many different places so people can be as productive as possible,” not all businesses have the resources and funds to create such an eclectic mix of office space.
Besides, there are certain types of office layouts that are more suitable and productivity-enhancing for specific types of business.
Take a look at the Carrwood Park guide on how different business types require different serviced office layouts. You can then use our guide to help you decide which office layout is best for your business.
The main types of office layouts are:
As we stated in our previous office layout blog, open-plan offices are gathering momentum, and are currently the preferred method of 70% of offices in the United States.
Open-plan offices involve everyone working in one big room that is void of dividers and everyone mixes and works under the same roof. Meeting rooms and conference rooms are often located on the outer walls in this type of office environment.
As the BBC writes, this “new type” of open-plan office “encouraged disclosure, discussion and debate” and can even help businesses reduce overheads.
“Managers were mixed in with the masses, cutting down on the expense of managerial offices and allowing organisations to manage their workforce more flexibly.”
As this type of office design is a creative environment, open-plan offices are great for creative businesses, such as design companies or digital agencies, which often require the use of an open-plan layout to nurture communication among employees.
Citing the downsides of an open-plan office layout, namely being noisy and germ-rendering environments, Inc.com believes a better solution would be an office that provides and mixture of open and closed spaces.
This type of office has places where people can work alone but can be seen and accessible to colleagues and a place where different teams can potentially work together.
“By mixing open and closed spaces, offices can glean the benefits of open designs – a symbolic sense of mission, a laid-back feeling of innovative enterprise – without the noisy and potentially unhealthy drawbacks,” writes Inc.com.
Cubicle farm-style offices are comprised of partitioned rows of spaces which are separated by dividers that only reach halfway up to the ceiling. The partitioned spaces are usually separated by aisles, designed for communication and negotiation amongst staff. It is important to remember that traffic flow needs to be considered in this type of office layout which is designed for a large number of workers. Aisles, particularly central aisles, need to be wide enough to accommodate traffic flow and employees passing one another.
These cubicles are typically equipped with a computer and phone line. Sometimes there is just one worker per cubicle, but often two or three employees share a cubicle.
Cubicle Farms are most suitable for firms with high volumes of middle management, such as call centres, in which managers can mix and be of assistance to staff with ease.
By the same token, a row layout office is also effective for call centres and businesses where employees spend their day on computers and phones. The Row Layout design is a traditional type of office space which comprises cubicles lined up in rows.
As the Small Business Chronicle points out, the row layout can be appealing to many businesses due to the ease of assembly and the fact it doesn’t require extensive planning. As with the cubicle farm layout, the rows are often segregated by high dividers to give workers privacy.
In its paper about different office layouts, the James Hilton Academy describes the Cellular layout as being offices that are made up of smaller individual rooms in which a small number of employees work.
In this type of office individuals or small teams can be isolated by closing a door.
Any business which requires staff to work routinely in a private setting is likely to be most suited to a cellular setup. For example, a law firm which requires individual rooms for lawyer and client confidentiality would require a cellular layout.
Businesses that rely on teamwork between colleagues and creative, spontaneous collaboration such as creative agencies would not be suited to this traditional type of office layout.
The choice of your office design should not be taken lightly. Get it right and an office can be a vital tool in sparking creativity and nurturing productivity. Get it wrong and your employees and ultimately your clients are likely to suffer.
Enjoy this blog? Why not read our other post ‘Setting up your office for maximum productivity’
For flexible, stylish and professional serviced offices in Leeds and Harrogate, get in touch with WorkWell.
If your company is making the leap and leasing new office space, you have a very important decision to make. How much space do you need? Choosing the right size is absolutely crucial, for a number of reasons: Read More about How to size your office
There are certain benefits to running a start-up business from home – the most obvious being cost savings. However, if your business is doing well,
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With countless amenities on your doorstep, convenient transportation and a buoyant hustle and bustle that gets you ‘in the mood’ for work, the benefits of city centre working have long been established and exploited. But did you know more and more firms and working professionals are now seeking office space on the outskirts of a city?
According to a report in Property Wire, office take up across the biggest six regional office markets in the UK, including Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Bristol, increased by at least 30% in 2014.
As demand for office markets outside London looks set to continue, where is more beneficial for modern firms and professional workers to conduct their working day – is it better to have an office in the city centre or the outskirts?
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Most of us spend an average of 99,117 hours of our lives in an office.
That is a lot of hours.
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There’s no doubt that the serviced office market is a vibrant and dynamic one. But is there really a clear picture in anyone’s mind as to where the industry is going?
In an interview with Carrwood’s own Oliver Corrigan, we explore not only the current state of the serviced office market, but also the future of serviced offices and other issues surrounding the industry as a whole.
Firstly, I would say that it has matured as an industry. In the beginning, it was more like a stopgap solution for start-up companies and other small businesses, but now a lot of blue chip and large companies use it as an effective way to keep overheads low and flexible. So essentially what we’ve seen is the industry shift from being dominated by owner-managed enterprises to now being shared between these and corporate structures.
Another key area of development is the addition of value-added workspace. The product offered by serviced office enterprises has become much more complex than just a simple desk area or meeting room. Innovations in furnishing and space have given rise to break-out areas, brainstorming areas, informal meeting spaces and much more. Serviced offices are now about providing a fully comprehensive space in which to work, meet, discuss and develop business.
Before the recession hit, the truth is that a lot of companies never really had to consider “value for money” as a factor in choosing a workspace. More often than not, companies just went with the most obvious solution before them, regardless of long-term cost considerations or real value for money.
The recession hit and it exposed not only financial weakness in some companies but also their inability to flexibly react to market changes. In serviced offices, people are renting more than just a bit of office space. They are also getting the flexibility to expand and contract as market strength and size dictate. In the post-recession climate, all companies are now being forced to see this huge difference and see that demand isn’t static and therefore they will need to be flexible to react to shifting demand.
Another factor to consider is the trend of manufacturing operations being shifted overseas, which is freeing up a lot of space that used to be factories, warehouses etc. This empty space would still need to be managed and maintained, which increases the burdens on the companies running them. This makes the serviced office sector all the more appealing, as all aspects of building management and maintenance are hired by the host enterprise. It’s no wonder then why many more companies are opting for serviced offices, prompting industry growth.
Companies save on costs and boost flexibility, but without sacrificing prestige and image. Despite what some may have previously thought about serviced offices, it is not a step backwards for a company to take one. In being able to focus entirely on their work operations, companies free up time and resources to attract more talent. You could compare it to the tablet PC, which while having a bigger price tag despite fewer parts, gives users vastly more flexibility through its portability and multifunctional nature, thus giving it incredible value. Serviced offices have the same advantages over regular office space or leased space.
Can industry growth be maintained? I certainly think it can be. Property prices are on the up, and therefore rents are also going up. We are entering a world of globalisation, populated by a more highly educated workforce that is split into small dynamic teams. The serviced office product is there and designed to meet these changes. As long as the industry can stay current, it will grow.
One more factor that helps maintain the growth of the industry is IT infrastructure. IT demands are growing massively, and becoming more complex. At Carrwood, we’re running 60,000 square feet of office space, but individual companies are getting smaller. We have invested tens of thousands of pounds in IT systems for our business park – a financial burden a lot of individual businesses do not want to shoulder alone due to the lower number of staff employed in one area. It gives companies yet another reason to choose serviced offices, as it allows them access to the IT infrastructure viable for hundreds or thousands of staff in a remote 6-person sales office. In fact we have a lot of MDs saying that their IT solutions in their branch office at Carrwood are better than their head office down in London.
To provide a good, central work location where people can focus, collaborate and develop.
Sustainability is certainly something that frequently appears in people’s enquiries when looking for new office space. My family has always been involved in farming, which as a highly mature industry thoroughly understands the importance of long-term sustainability and eliminating waste. Carrwood’s competitors often cite all the ways they make their buildings eco-friendly – a green place for people to work in. But in my opinion, they’re looking at the issue the wrong way around. At Carrwood, we take the user’s perspective as the primary focus, not the building itself. It’s fine to put in green systems, but if you don’t have the in-house know-how of how to run and maintain them yourself, then the benefits are minimized.
For example, where many offices will turn their heating systems off over the weekend to “save energy”, Carrwood would keep them running at a steady low constant. If the heating had been off all weekend, and an employee cranks it up to 24 degrees as soon as they arrive on Monday morning, then the system will run inefficiently and wastefully as it fires up. We at Carrwood would keep the temperature at a steady 18 degrees all weekend, so that when the user comes in they might only need to put it up to 20, and in the long-term a greater saving is made.
The adage “location, location, location” is massively dependent on the industry – I would suggest that quality is ever-increasing in importance, but one can’t ever deny the importance of location. It’s hard to gauge the tipping point between the two. Productivity of staff is more important – so the location must be tailored to maximise this. But location is diminishing in importance somewhat, as technology allows more and more locations to become viable.
Quality is not just a question of fixtures and fittings, but also about layout and know-how. Without the know-how, logic and experience to make a good set-up, then quality doesn’t enhance productivity. To enhance productivity, Carrwood uses workspace, meeting space and the all-important “third space”, such as our atrium, break-out areas and other spaces. These are all designed to give a wow factor and provide a productive environment.
Leeds is a very dynamic and forward-thinking city and has frequently ranked in the top 5 UK for growth rate, best city for business and more. In 2009 it was awarded “One of Europe’s Top 25 Cities for Business”. It’s fair to assume that the top several UK cities will always be top, but HS2 and improving airport links might help shift the dynamic slightly. Technology will also help remove barriers and open up new areas for development. Also, those top cities will only ever remain “hotspots” if they also remain highly liveable. Without liveability, companies can’t hope to attract the best talent for their business.
First, super-high-speed Internet connectivity. The world is using less bandwidth per device but the number of connections is increasing. Serviced offices need to be there to meet the changes. The increasing prevalence of HD and other technological developments will increase demand on capacity, and so faster Internet will definitely be totally indispensable.
Second, Wi-Fi. It needs to be as secure and reliable as hard-wired Internet, and Carrwood is currently investing in new networks to be just that. At any one time, we can have over 170 wireless devices connecting to the network in just one building, with around 120 permanent customers. This is a radical change from 5 years ago when there was only about 25-30% of that connection rate. Providing basic Wi-Fi isn’t good enough. It needs to be sophisticated enough to manage multiple connections and allow our customers the ability to tailor their own company policy despite there being others sharing the space. In 2014 we plan a big shake-up of exactly how we deal with this, allowing customer privacy and simplicity while at the same time flexibility and security.
Third, software allows collaboration and interaction by creating a new “digital space”. The integration of social and collaborative tools will go hand in hand with this, such as moving a monitor feed to a projector feed quickly and simply.
Finally, cloud technology is an extension of the serviced office. Part of our recent IT investment is designed to increase the efficiency of cloud computing in our spaces because people are carrying multiple devices now and cloud computing is what gives seamless integration of data and other information.
The industry is still young but has matured rapidly in recent years. It will continue to mature with more products coming out and will adapt to how businesses want to work. The way I see it, the sector will only grow. It allows customers to increase their space in a dynamic way that gives flexibility to meet new market/customer demand.
