Office Features You Can’t Afford to Ignore
It’s an exciting time when you’re either kitting out a brand-new office or perhaps remodeling an existing one. The feeling of a fresh start, of creating a dynamic and productive workspace where people are going to build a career — it’s a real thrill!
Everyone has their ideas on what makes a good office, but there are some features that no office should be without. Take a look at our list and ensure that your office is not short any of these things:
1. Reception Area
Let’s say you’re an exciting new startup in Queensland and you’re setting up your first office. One party suggests that your office breaks the mold and decides not to bother with a traditional reception desk and waiting area. Instead, clients will just walk in and be right amongst you. Well, that’s one way of doing it, but we suggest that you should buy reception desks for your Brisbane office and lay out a proper reception area.
The reception is the first impression that clients and other visitors get of your company and your brand. It has to be a warm, welcoming and professional-looking place. You really can’t afford to skip this vital square on the board.
2. Meeting Room, or Multi-Purpose Room
Whether you set up a conference room with a fixed meeting desk, chairs and conference call speakerphone in place, or whether you keep the room more flexible for meetings, training and other uses, you need some kind of multi-purpose or collaborative space in your office. If you can only fit in one, then put in one. If you can do more, then do more. Spaces of different sizes are ideal to suit the needs of different teams and different events.
Having smaller rooms for team or department meetings and larger spaces that you can use for all-staff training and professional development events gives you a great facility to offer a busy and productive team.
3. Kitchen and Rest/Break Area
It doesn’t matter if the kitchen is the smallest room in the place, and the break room is just a back room with a water dispenser and some tables and chairs, it’s still something you should invest in. Preferably, you’ll put some thought into these rest spaces and offer comfortable seating, recreation activities and more. It’ll certainly be an attractive feature that brings in your team members to work each day without fail.
Most of all, people just need a nice space in which to chill, chat with colleagues, a place to enjoy their lunch away from their desk, to close their eyes for a few minutes and just think about nothing.
4. Boards
Now, “boards” can come in many forms. The traditional choice of many offices is to either purchase movable whiteboards, or install fixed whiteboards on the walls of key meeting and collaboration spaces. Both of those approaches are fine. Portable whiteboards are arguably more efficient because you can then use them anywhere in the office. Why not get even more creative, though, and make all the walls in your meeting rooms ones that can be written on with dry-wipe markers?
Why do we need to think about boards anyway? Whatever form you choose, boards are a way to brainstorm ideas, draw flow diagrams, and simply write or draw out things that we’re discussing to help everyone to visualise it better. No company can do without at least one!
5. Print, Scan and Copy
Finally, a technological feature you absolutely need is a reliable printer, scanner and copier. The best news here is that these have long since been integrated into a single glorious machine. What’s more, they now work wirelessly, and you can even get them with employee swipe cards so you can track who is using which copier how often, which department is using up too much paper, and so on.
However you set it up, you should not be forcing your staff to rely on outside printing, or bringing in their own printers when they’re needed. The classic print, scan and copy functions are still needed.
