Updating Your Office Space: A Guide For Business Owners

Three focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Organizational/Management Discussions. Office space in any business or organization is critical. One of the keys to your business is optimizing and updating your office space. The following contributed post is entitled, Updating Your Office Space: A Guide For Business Owners.

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If you run an office space as a business owner, you’ll know that keeping your space safe, stylish and up to date is a challenge. Not only are updates to your space costly, but they are time consuming, and often create a disruption to the workflow of the office. But of course, with great power comes great responsibility, and if you want to be a responsible business owner, keeping your space user-friendly and up to date is essential.

How Often Should The Space Be Updated?

If your original office space was well-built and well-designed, you should not need to update it often. With proper maintenance, cleaning and care, the building may only need refurbishments every fifteen to twenty years. This also depends on the business. If you run a café or restaurant with a lot of footfall, these refurbishments should happen more frequently, as the general wear and tear of the place will increase.

What Should Be Prioritized?

As with most things, safety should be the number one priority. If you feel your space needs multiple changes to be made, take it one step at a time. The core safety of the building, its structure and safety exits should come first. Installing fire-safe MCM panels on the outside of your building and ensuring that fire exits are safe and well-signposted are essentials for your building.

After safety is taken care of, the next priority should be your office’s usability for its employees. Offices should be spaces that encourage collaboration, concentration and productivity. This means that the layout of the office should be designed for employees to have both peace and quiet, and spaces to collaborate.

Finally, there are the finishing touches. To make your office a standout space which your employees love to spend time in, add colour, nature and a few easy perks. These are simple additions which transform your office from a mundane place of work to a chic locale.

Some ideas for these design finishing touches are:

Houseplants. These are fantastic additions to any room with natural light. They are inexpensive and beautiful, and amazingly, they help purify the air in your office.
A good quality coffee machine. Seriously. Although a coffee machine is a slightly expensive addition, your employees will be thrilled with this addition. Coffee goes a long way, particularly in stressful times when extra energy reserves are needed.
Chill-out spaces. If your office is not in a city centre, and is not surrounded by cool hangouts for your employees to kick back in on their breaks, create one in your own space. This can be as simple as a few bean bag chairs and a Playstation for everyone to enjoy their downtime.

Outsourcing Your Updates

If you are concerned about updating your office space, contact a contractor who can talk you through the process and ensure the work is being done safely and legally. If you need help with design, contact an office designer for a quote, or use the internet for office design inspiration!

Author: anwaryusef

Anwar Y. Dunbar is a Regulatory Scientist. Being a naturally curious person, he is also a student of all things. He earned his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Michigan and his Bachelor’s Degree in General Biology from Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU). Prior to starting the Big Words Blog Site, Anwar published and contributed to numerous research articles in competitive scientific journals reporting on his research from graduate school and postdoctoral years. After falling in love with writing, he contributed to the now defunct Examiner.com, and the Edvocate where he regularly wrote about: Education-related stories/topics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Financial Literacy; as well as conducted interviews with notable individuals such as actor and author Hill Harper. Having many influences, one of his most notable heroes is author, intellectual and speaker, Malcolm Gladwell, author of books including Outliers and David and Goliath. Anwar has his hands in many, many activities. In addition to writing, Anwar actively mentors youth, works to spread awareness of STEM careers, serves on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the David M. Brown Arlington Planetarium, serves as Treasurer for the JCSU Washington, DC Alumni Chapter, and is active in the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace Ministry at the Alfred Street Baptist Church. He also tutors in the subjects of biology, chemistry and physics. Along with his multi-talented older brother Amahl Dunbar (designer of the Big Words logos, inventor and a plethora of other things), Anwar is a “Fanboy” and really enjoys Science-Fiction and Superhero movies including but not restricted to Captain America Civil War, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Prometheus. He is a proud native of Buffalo, NY.

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