Small Office Improvement Tips, Commercial Building Remodeling Advice, Renovating Property
How to effectively use all the space in a small office building
16 August 2019
Working in a small office building can turn out to be quite frustrating, but the best thing you can do is work your way towards making the most out of what you got. With a bit of organizing and some smart decisions, you can take advantage of every square meter of your office, without the need of 5 office floors. Below is a list of tips on how to efficiently use all the office area, even if you only have two floors available.
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Get rid of clutter
The first thing you can do to maximize the space you have is to keep it clutter-free with a skip hiring service. Make a habit out of disposing of stuff you don’t need and instruct your employees to do the same. Don’t hold on to items that you don’t already need, such as unnecessary furniture or piles of unsorted papers.
A good way to get rid of piles of paper is to store everything on the computer. Going paperless is not only goods for the environment, but will help you be more organized and find stuff much easily. Digitally storing contracts, bills and every other piece of paper you can will help tremendously. And, when you need a paper copy of something, you can simply print it out and use it. This way, you can eliminate file cabinets that not only take up space, but also look quite unappealing.
Make use of common spaces
You don’t need two meeting rooms and one lunch room to keep an office running. You can use the common area to hold meetings and have lunch, making room for more offices. If you schedule meetings in the morning, or near the end of the day, you can have the space free for lunch.
Another way to eliminate meeting rooms is to hold stand-up meetings. They are shorter and much more efficient. Holding a stand-up meeting every day to make sure everyone is caught up with their work is much more effective than having one weekly meeting that is often too long and counterproductive.
Store rubbish smart
Garbage bins can take up space and look extremely unappealing, not to mention that you need to store the rubbish somewhere, until it gets picked up. To deal with waste, you can use waste balers. Waste balers are good for all business sectors that create waste, including offices that have to deal with lots of cardboard and paper, which can take up a lot of space.
You can use cardboard compactors to reduce the space cardboard or paper takes in your office and then store ballots until they get picked up and recycled. Plus, they are much more aesthetically pleasing than large bags of waste sitting around outside the building.
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Take advantage of vertical space
If you need storage space, use the top part of your walls as well. Install floor-to-ceiling shelves to store supplies and other items that you need for the office. If you need to store things near your desk, consider installing shelves above the desk, instead of using un all the floor space. You can find lots of options at furniture stores or have customized ones to fit your office area.
Pockets on the wall can also help with office space. You can install metal pockets for mail, paperwork that needs to be held close to your desk, or magazines for the reception area.
Create flexible working space
When you have only one or two floors available, the worst thing you can do is try to split it into small offices. Instead, consider keeping the entire floor a common work space. Add an individual desk for every employee, so they each have their own place to work at, and set up areas with small tables and sofas, where your employees can work on projects together and hold small meetings.
If you do want your employees to have some privacy, consider dividers, which can be set up when needed and, if you need to make the space larger at a certain time, you can take them out and turn the area into a bigger one.
Pay attention to materials
When choosing materials for the office, pay close attention to what can make the space look smaller than it actually is. Heavy material, such as big rugs, hardwood furniture and marble can take away from the dimension of the space and make everything look more crowded, despite their luxurious aesthetic.
Use lighter furniture, smaller couches and multifunctional chairs. For the meeting area, you can use an extendable table, which can be kept in the corner for stand-up meetings, and pulled out when you need to hold a bigger meeting. Everyone can bring their own desk chair, especially if you work in an open office.
Play with natural light
Although this is more of an optical illusion, making use of as much natural light as possible can work wonders on a small office area. Choose large windows, to have as much natural light as possible and make the space look more open. Arrange the office strategically, so that sun beams don’t come through the windows and directly onto your screen.
Keeping curtains open as much as possible can work wonders, not only for the space, but for the health of everyone in the office as well. Natural light has tremendous benefits and can turn even the smallest of spaces into a more open one.
Having to work with a small office space does not mean you need to cut down on comfort or storage. It just means you need to work smarter with what you got. Keeping the area as free of clutter as possible, as well as storing trash smart can help tremendously. Make sure you make the most out of your walls and use them to their full capacity for storage. When it comes to common areas, use them for multiple purposes, to eliminate the need for a separate conference room, a kitchen and a lunch area.
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